This undated photograph offered by the Iranian Area Company exhibits a Chamran-1 satellite tv for pc. Iran launched the satellite tv for pc into house on Saturday with a rocket constructed by the nation’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, state-run media reported.
Iranian Area Company/AP
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Iranian Area Company/AP
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran launched a satellite tv for pc into house Saturday with a rocket constructed by the nation’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, state-run media reported, the most recent for a program the West fears helps Tehran advance its ballistic missile program.
Iran described the launch as a hit, which might be the second such launch to place a satellite tv for pc into orbit with the rocket. There was no instant impartial affirmation of the launch’s success.
Footage later launched by Iranian media confirmed the rocket blast off from a cellular launcher. An Related Press evaluation of the video and different imagery later launched recommended the launch occurred on the Guard’s launch pad on the outskirts of the town of Shahroud, some 215 miles east of the capital, Tehran.
The launch comes amid heightened tensions gripping the broader Center East over the continued Israel-Hamas warfare within the Gaza Strip, throughout which Tehran launched an unprecedented direct missile-and-drone assault on Israel. In the meantime, Iran continues to complement uranium to almost weapons-grade ranges, elevating considerations amongst nonproliferation specialists about Tehran’s program.
Iran recognized the satellite-carrying rocket because the Qaem-100, which the Guard utilized in January for an additional profitable launch. Qaem means “upright” in Iran’s Farsi language.
The solid-fuel, three-stage rocket put the Chamran-1 satellite tv for pc, weighing 60 kilograms (132 kilos), right into a 550-kilometer (340-mile) orbit, state media reported. The rocket bore a Quranic verse: “That which is left by Allah is better for you, if you are believers.”
A state-owned subsidiary of Iran’s Defense Ministry and experts at the Aerospace Research Institute built the satellite with others to “test hardware and software systems for orbital maneuver technology validation,” state media said, without elaborating.
Gen. Hossein Salami, the head of the Guard, praised the launch in a statement and said scientists successfully overcame “the atmosphere of extensive and oppressive international sanctions.”
The U.S. State Division and the American navy didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark over the Iranian launch.
America had beforehand stated Iran’s satellite tv for pc launches defy a U.N. Safety Council decision and referred to as on Tehran to undertake no exercise involving ballistic missiles able to delivering nuclear weapons. U.N. sanctions associated to Iran’s ballistic missile program expired final October.
Underneath Iran’s comparatively reasonable former President Hassan Rouhani, the Islamic Republic slowed its house program for worry of elevating tensions with the West. Onerous-line President Ebrahim Raisi, a protege of Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who got here to energy in 2021, has pushed this system ahead. Raisi died in a helicopter crash in Could.
It is unclear what Iran’s new president, the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian, desires for this system as he was silent on the problem whereas campaigning.
The U.S. intelligence neighborhood’s worldwide menace evaluation this yr stated Iran’s improvement of satellite tv for pc launch autos “would shorten the timeline” for Iran to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile as a result of it makes use of related expertise.
Intercontinental ballistic missiles can be utilized to ship nuclear weapons. Iran is now producing uranium near weapons-grade ranges after the collapse of its nuclear cope with world powers. Tehran has sufficient enriched uranium for “several” nuclear weapons, if it chooses to supply them, the top of the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company repeatedly has warned.
Iran has at all times denied searching for nuclear weapons and says its house program, like its nuclear actions, is for purely civilian functions. Nonetheless, U.S. intelligence companies and the IAEA say Iran had an organized navy nuclear program up till 2003.
The launch additionally got here forward of the second anniversary of the demise of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, which sparked nationwide protests in opposition to Iran’s necessary headband, or hijab, legislation and the nation’s Shiite theocracy.
