Iran said Sunday it has successfully launched three satellites into space, the latest in a program the West says improves Tehran’s ballistic missiles.
The state-run IRNA news agency said the launch also successfully used Iran’s Simorgh rocket, which has had multiple failures in the past.
The launch comes as rising tensions grip the entire Middle East over Israel’s continuing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
While Iran has not intervened militarily in the conflict, it has faced increased pressure within its theocracy to act after a deadly Islamic State suicide bombing earlier this month and as proxy groups such as Yemen’s Houthi rebels carry out linked attacks. to the war.
Footage released by Iranian state television showed a nighttime launch of the Simorgh rocket.
An Associated Press analysis of details of the footage showed it took place at the Imam Khomeini spaceport in the rural Iranian province of Semnan.
Footage released by Iranian state television showed a nighttime launch of the Simorgh rocket. AP
State television named the launched satellites Mahda, Kayhan-2 and Hatef-1.
He described Mahda as a research satellite, while Kayhan and Hatef were nanosatellites focused on global positioning and communication, respectively.
There have been five failed launches in a row of the Simorgh programme, another satellite-carrying rocket.
The Simorgh, or “Phoenix,” rocket failures have been part of a series of setbacks in recent years for Iran’s civilian space program, including fatal fires and a rocket explosion on the launch pad that caught the attention of the former US president Donald Trump.
The launch comes as rising tensions grip the entire Middle East over Israel’s continuing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. AP
The United States has previously said Iran’s satellite launches defy a U.N. Security Council resolution and called on Tehran not to undertake any activities involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
UN sanctions related to Iran’s ballistic missile program expired last October.
The U.S. intelligence community’s 2023 global threat assessment said the development of satellite launch vehicles “shortens the timeline” for Iran to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile because it uses similar technology.
The US military and the State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
However, the US military has quietly acknowledged the successful launch of an Iranian satellite on January 20 by the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn