Iran has announced the successful test flight of a rocket capable of launching satellites into space, three months after it launched a satellite with the help of Russia. The United States has repeatedly expressed concern that such launches could boost Iran’s ballistic missile technology, expanding its potential delivery of nuclear warheads. However, Iran has insisted that it does not seek nuclear weapons and that its satellite and missile launches are only for political or defense purposes. State television reported the “successful suborbital launch of the satellite launcher named Ghaem-100.” “The flight test of this launcher using the Rafe solid fuel vehicle has been successfully completed,” it said on Saturday. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Revolutionary Guard’s aerospace division that developed the Ghaem 100, said the missile would be used to launch Iran’s Nahid satellite for the telecommunications ministry, state media reported. Saturday’s operation tested the missile’s first suborbital stage, the reports added. Ghaem-100 “is capable of placing satellites weighing 80 kilograms (176 pounds) into an orbit 500 kilometers (just over 300 miles) from the Earth’s surface,” it said. Iran successfully launched its first military satellite into orbit in April 2020, drawing sharp rebuke from Washington. In August this year, another Iranian satellite, named Khayyam, was launched by Russia on a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Iran’s space agency said the device was built by Russia under Iranian supervision. The US claimed at the time that Khayyam would allow “significant espionage capabilities” and that a deepening Russia-Iran alliance amounted to a “profound threat” to the world. Iran’s space agency rejected these claims, responding that Khayyam’s purpose was to “monitor the country’s borders” and help manage natural resources and agriculture. Iran, which has one of the largest missile programs in the Middle East, has had several failed satellite launches blamed on technical issues in recent years.
