Iran Launches Homegrown Satellite into Space

Local Editor

Iran launched a domestically-built satellite into space with an aim to collect environmental information to boost the country's forecasting system; however, technical problems that occurred during the final stage of the launch prevented the spacecraft from reaching orbit.

Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi tweeted on Tuesday that the first and second stages of the space mission had been performed successfully, but that the Simorgh satellite carrier had failed to accelerate to orbital speed in the third stage.

“The Payam [Message] satellite was successfully launched this morning aboard the satellite carrier. But the satellite unfortunately failed to be placed in orbit in the final stage,” said the minister.

Azari Jahromi, however, stressed that Iran was preparing to launch another Low-Earth Orbit satellite, named Doosti [friendship].

“This time, with extra efforts, we are going to show the world that Doosti will be a success,” he added.

Iran launched its first locally-built satellite, Omid [Hope], in 2009. The country also sent its first bio-capsule containing living creatures into space in February 2010, using Kavoshgar [Explorer]-3 carrier.

In February 2015, Iran placed its domestically-made Fajr [Dawn] satellite into orbit, which is capable of taking and transmitting high-quality photos to stations on Earth.

Prior to the launch, the US warned Iran against the mission, claiming that any such project ran counter to Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers as well as the relevant UN Security Council resolution that endorsed it.

Iran responded by giving assurances that there is no military aspect to its satellite activity and that its missile tests are in no way banned under the nuclear agreement nor the UNSC resolution, because the missiles are not designed to deliver nuclear warheads.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team