Iran state media officially announced that successful test flight of a rocket capable of propelling a satellite into space after three months of launching with the help of Russia. The United Nations has repeatedly warned and had great concern over such ballistic missile technology which will enable Iran to deliver nuclear warheads into Space but Tehran has refuted its allegations that its satellite rocket launchers are just for defence and other different purposes which would help Iran in its boundaries with other countries as well as for it security measurement
State television reported the “successful suborbital launch of the satellite launcher named Ghaem-100”.
“The flight test of this launcher using the Rafe solid-fuel vehicle has been successfully completed,” it reported on Saturday.
The head of the Revolutionary Guard’s Aerospace division Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that they have developed the Ghaem-100 which would be used to launch Iran’s Nahid satellite for the telecommunications ministry. Saturday’s operation tested the first sub-orbital stage of the rocket, the reports added.
Ghaem-100 “is capable of placing satellites weighing 80 kilograms (176 pounds) in an orbit 500 kilometres (just more than 300 miles) from the surface of the Earth,” it said.
Earlier Iran successfully put its first military satellite into orbit in April 2020, as a result of which Washington made a sharp rebuke that time.
Iran in collaboration with Russia another Satellite named Khayyam launched in August this year on a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Iran’s space agency said the device was constructed by Russia under Iran’s supervision.
The US alleged at the time that Iran would enable significant spying capabilities and that such a deep Russia-Iran alliance would create a serious threat to the world.
Iran’s space agency rejected these allegations, countering that the purpose of Khayyam was to “monitor the country’s borders”, and help with the management of natural resources and agriculture.
Iran, which has one of the biggest missile programmes in the Middle East, has had several failed satellite-launches experiments in the past few years.
