Iran Launches Sounding Rocket from New Space Center
In preparation for the lifting of its first nationally-built satellite, the Omid, Iran has launched a Kavoshgar1 "sounding rocket" into space. The launch also marks the inauguration of Iran’s first domestic satellite complex:
The suborbital research rocket took off at Iran’s space launch base, which is specifically built for sending Iranian rockets into outer space from inside the country.
A sounding rocket is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its suborbital flight.
Kavoshgar1 was launched as a preliminary step towards sending the ‘Omid Satellite’ into orbit. Omid is the first advanced scientific research satellite exclusively designed and made by Iranian scientists.
The Omid (which is Persian for "hope") Iran will be the first of five satellites that Iran plans to launch into orbit by 2010. Iran "joined the international space-faring community" in February 2007 after successfully testing its first sounding rocket.
The AP reports that "some Western experts also have raised the possibility that Iran’s space program may be a cover to more fully develop its military ballistic missiles, a prospect many find troubling at a time when the U.S. and others worry Tehran is trying to develop nuclear weapons."
In other satellite news from the Middle East, Israel Aerospace Industries announced over the weekend that its TecSAR satellite, launched last month, had beamed down its first images of Earth and was in "perfect" working condition. We blogged about TecSAR’s launch here.
