Tehran claims to have “successfully” tested a satellite launcher

Iran announced on Saturday that it had “successfully” tested a rocket capable of carrying satellites into space, state television reported. Western governments fear that satellite launch systems incorporate technologies interchangeable with those used in ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, which Iran has always denied wanting to build.

The television reported the “successful suborbital launch of the satellite launcher called Ghaem-100”, without revealing more details about the operation. “The flight test of this launcher (…) was successfully carried out,” she said. According to the same source, the Ghaem-100 rocket was manufactured by the Revolutionary Guards Aerospace Organization, Iran’s ideological army.

Concerns in the West

It is Iran’s first three-stage solid-fuel satellite launcher, the television said. Ghaem-100 “is capable of placing satellites weighing 80 kilos into an orbit 500 kilometers from the surface of the earth,” the television added. Iran had launched the Khayyam satellite (named in honor of the Persian polymath Omar Khayyam) in August with a Soyuz-2.1B rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, controlled by Moscow.

The Iranian space agency had indicated that the device had been built by the Russians under the supervision of Iran. The United States claimed at the time that Khayyam would be earmarked for “spying” activities, calling Moscow’s growing cooperation with Tehran a serious “threat”.

Iran rejected these allegations, saying that the device was built “to meet the needs of the country” in particular in the “management of urban crises” and “natural resources”. Iran insists its space program is for civilian and defense purposes only, and does not violate the 2015 nuclear deal or any other international agreement.