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Iran Test-Fires Rocket Able to Put Satellite into Orbit

Posted on: Tuesday, 19 August 2008, 06:00 CDT

Iran has test-fired a new rocket capable of carrying a satellite into orbit, the Iranian state news media reported. Western experts said the launching represented a potentially significant if much- delayed step in Iran's efforts to join the international space club.

The report of the test flight comes amid growing Western nervousness over Iran's nuclear program and concerns that Iran could one day use its missile expertise to threaten enemies with annihilation by means of nuclear warheads.

On Sunday, Iranian television broadcast images of the nighttime rocket launching and said the satellite itself had been fired into orbit. But officials later said that only the rocket had been launched, correcting news reports that a satellite had flown into space.

On Monday, Iran offered to help other countries launch satellites into orbit, Reuters reported. The head of its Aerospace Organization, Reza Taghipour, was quoted as saying on state television: "I am announcing now that Iran is ready to launch satellites of friendly Islamic countries into space."

The White House said Iran's rocket announcement was "troubling," calling it part of a pattern of Iranian activity to build a nuclear program and the means to launch a potential weapon.

"The Iranian development and testing of rockets is troubling and raises further questions about their intentions," a White House spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said Sunday.

Rocket scientists agree that the same technology that puts satellites into orbit can also deliver warheads.

An administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of security concerns, said that the best American information indicated that the Iranian effort had failed, and that the missile or the dummy satellite, or both, had broken up.

Charles Vick, an Iranian rocket expert at GlobalSecurity.org, a research group in Alexandria, Virginia, called the weekend test flight "a precursor to the satellite launch." He said the satellite's launching had been repeatedly delayed and might occur in the next few weeks or months.

"This test launching is several months behind the June expectation," he added in an interview, saying that the Iranians had suffered many delays from design flaws and hardware failures.

Vick said the launching nonetheless in theory represented a significant step because it appeared to be Iran's first firing of a rocket with more than one stage. The rocket was identified by state news media as the Safir-e Omid, or Ambassador of Peace, and was said to have fired two stages. Vick said the first stage consisted of a Shahab, a standard rocket in Iran's arsenal, topped by a liquid- fueled second stage and possibly a small solid-fueled third stage.

Iran has long held the goal of developing a space program. In 2005, it launched its first commercial satellite on a Russian rocket in a joint project with Moscow, a main partner in transferring space technology to Iran.

Iran says it wants to put its own satellites into orbit to monitor natural disasters in the earthquake-prone nation and improve its telecommunications.

Source: International Herald Tribune

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