Archive for March, 2007

Iran’s Sputnik?

Thursday, March 1st, 2007

What precisely did Iran launch earlier this week, and what does it mean?

That’s a hot topic among space, military and diplomacy analysts around the world. 

"Calling the test a scientific achievement which will help propel Tehran’s research into the next century, Iranian leaders say its aerospace research center has launched a rocket 150km (93 miles) above the Earth, which returned with the aid of parachutes,"  Iranian.ws reports.

The Fars News Agency claims the "space rocket" was launched for "scientific purposes." 

"But the 25-30-ton rocket could be a wolf in sheep’s clothing to test longer-range Iranian missile technologies," Spaceref.com counters. 

What’s the truth? Radio Free Europe spoke to Shannon Kile, a senior nonproliferation expert at the Stockholm International Peace Institute in Sweden, for analysis. She says:

Well, there is actually some confusion about exactly what Iran launched. The initial reports that came from the Iranian state media indicated that Iran was in fact trying to place a satellite into orbit, and the head of the Iranian space agency quickly dismissed that, saying no, that in fact this was a sounding rocket [a rocket bearing scientific instruments to probe the upper atmosphere] and the purpose of the rocket was basically to go above the 100 kilometer boundary that is commonly considered to mark the beginning of space. The type of rocket that Iran used appears to have been a single-stage, liquid-fuel rocket that probably is a derivation of one of their simpler, medium-range ballistic missiles….

The rocket that was launched last week was basically a sounding rocket, this is half-a-century-old technology. It doesn’t represent any major technological achievement for Iran. [However], it’s important to keep in mind that there are a number of reports recently in trade and industry publications which indicate that Iran is preparing a real satellite launcher based on the Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile.

The Shahab missle series, interestingly enough, is a variation of the Scud missles made famous during the first Gulf War.

What do you think is the meaning of this week’s rocket test by Iran?