{"id":10639,"date":"2022-03-08T18:25:14","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T10:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/irans-military-successfully-launches-satellite\/"},"modified":"2022-03-08T18:25:14","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T10:25:14","slug":"irans-military-successfully-launches-satellite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/irans-military-successfully-launches-satellite\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s military successfully launches satellite"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Iran state television broadcast a video of the launch of the Noor 2 satellite. Credit: IRIB<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

U.S. military tracking radars confirmed claims from Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guard Corps Tuesday that the Iranian military placed a small satellite into orbit.<\/p>\n

Iranian officials said a Qased launcher successfully placed the Noor 2 satellite into orbit Tuesday. Iran\u2019s state broadcaster showed video of the launch, which apparently took off from the Shahroud missile range in the northeastern part of the country.<\/p>\n

Officials did not disclose a launch time, but the Qased rocket likely lifted off shortly after 0500 GMT (12 a.m. EST; 8:30 a.m. Iran Standard Time). The rocket is made of three stages, with a first stage based on an Iranian ballistic missile upgraded to loft a small payload into orbit.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it placed a satellite named Noor 2 into orbit. The government-run Islamic Republic News Agency described Noor 2 as a reconnaissance satellite. The news agency said ground teams had received the first signals from the spacecraft.<\/p>\n

The Noor 2 satellite likely weighed less than 100 pounds (45 kilograms) at launch, but Iranian officials revealed no more details about the mission. It appears to be a follow-up to the Noor 1 satellite launched on the same type of rocket in April 2020.<\/p>\n

The Qased launcher flew southeast over Iranian territory. Tracking data released by the U.S. military showed two objects \u2014 likely the rocket\u2019s upper stage and Noor 2 \u2014 orbiting at an altitude of roughly 310 miles (500 kilometers) at an inclination of 58.3 degrees to the equator.<\/p>\n

The launch Tuesday was the second use of the Iranian military\u2019s Qased satellite launcher. Both flights of the Qased \u2014 at least those publicly known \u2014 have been successful.<\/p>\n

In parallel with the military satellite program, Iran has developed a series of Safir and Simorgh rockets, purportedly for peaceful civilian purposes. The Safir and Simorgh rockets have a spotty success record, with the Safir not reaching orbit since 2015. The larger Simorgh has never placed a satellite into orbit in a series of attempts, most recently in December.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also been evidence revealed in overhead satellite imagery of rocket explosions at Iran\u2019s Imam Khomeini Spaceport, a launch complex separate from the Shahround missile range used for Tuesday\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n

Former President Donald Trump tweeted an image of a damaged Iranian launch pad in 2019, revealing debris from what analysts said was likely a pre-launch explosion. The image was taken by a classified National Reconnaissance Office spy satellite.<\/p>\n

Commercial satellite imagery last month showed fresh damage at the Imam Khomeini Spaceport, suggesting another pre-launch mishap occurred there.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iran state television broadcast a video of the launch of the Noor 2 satellite. Credit: IRIB U.S. military tracking radars confirmed claims from Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guard Corps Tuesday that the Iranian military placed a small satellite into orbit. Iranian officials said a Qased launcher successfully placed the Noor 2 satellite into orbit Tuesday. Iran\u2019s state broadcaster […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}