Iran’s Satellite Nour-1 to Carry out Military, Civilian Missions

By Staff, Agencies

The multipurpose homegrown satellite that the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps has sent into space is going to carry out a range of military and civilian missions in Iran, including reconnaissance and natural disaster response operations, a senior commander said.

In comments on Thursday, commander of the Space Division of IRGC Aerospace Force General Ali Ja’farabadi said the Iranian Noor-1 [light] satellite that has been launched into space on Wednesday is a piece of the puzzle that includes reconnaissance operations, strategic logistics of reconnaissance missions, as well as telecommunication and navigation activities.

The operational sensors of Noor-1 satellite will be activated within the next 10 days, he noted.

Ja’farabadi said the Iranian satellite is primarily used for reconnaissance operations in the defense sphere.

He also highlighted the broad application of satellites in the non-military activities, such as for natural disaster response, saying the satellites can provide large-scale images from an altitude of several hundreds of kilometers above the Earth when there is no possibility of flying drones or helicopters.

For example, the need to use satellite images was extremely felt during the last year’s floods in Iran’s southwestern province of Khuzestan, when the flooding was so massive that monitoring the situation with drones was impracticable, the commander noted.

He finally noted that the IRGC’s next plan is to launch the Noor-2 into orbit in future.

The IRGC successfully put Noor-1into orbit on Wednesday morning. The homegrown satellite was launched with a three-stage satellite carrier, dubbed Qassed [messenger], from a launch pad in Dasht-e Kavir, a large desert in central Iran.

The satellite has been placed into an orbit 425 kilometers above the Earth.