June 23, 2021: Iran likely conducted a failed launch of a satellite-carrying rocket in recent days and now appears to be preparing to try again, the country’s latest effort to advance its space program amid tensions with the West over its tattered nuclear deal.
Satellite images, a U.S. official and a rocket expert all confirmed the failed launch, earlier this month, at the Imam Khomeini Spaceport in Iran’s Semnan province. The attempt comes as Iran’s space program has suffered a series of high-profile losses, while its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard runs its own parallel program that launched a satellite into orbit last year.
As with other failed launches, Iranian state media did not acknowledge that this had happened. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Wednesday. Satellite images from Planet Labs Inc. and Mixer Technologies show preparations on June 6 at the space port. The images also include objects resembling a fuel tank as well as a large white gantry containing a rocket, while scientists refuel it and prepare for launch. Prior to the launch, workers tied up the gator to expose the rocket.
The number of fuel tanks, based on their size, is enough to fill the first and second stages of an Iranian Simorgh rocket, said Jeffrey Lewis, an expert at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middleberry Institute of International Studies. He said that Simorgh was a satellite rocket that was launched from the same area of the space port. Later, on June 17, satellite images showed a decrease in activity on the site. Lewis said analysts believe Iran launched a rocket at some point in the window. “Nothing was blown up. “There were no major stains – like they threw fuel – and the vehicles somehow spread out,” he said.
The overall level of activity on the site was very low. So in our minds, it looked like a launch. CNN, which reported the first failed launch, quoted Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Uriah Orland as saying, “The U.S. space command is aware of the failure of the Iranian rocket launch that took place in early June 12. Orlando did not elaborate. The Pentagon and the US space command did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Associated Press early Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear why Iran chose to launch on June 12, as Tehran usually plans such launches for national events. However, this came as a result of Iran’s participation in last week’s presidential election, in which the Islamic Republic hoped to increase turnout. On Sunday, a new satellite image from Planet Labs showed new activity on the site. This photo shows a mobile platform previously used to secure a Seymour rocket on the gantry, a support vehicle that appeared in previous launches, and a new set of fuel containers lined up at the site.
Lewis said the luggage indicates another launch is approaching. Over the past decade, Iran has sent many short-lived satellites into orbit and in 2013 launched a monkey into space. However, the program has seen recent troubles. The failed start this month will be the fourth in a row for the Simorgh program. A separate fire at the Imam Khomeini spaceport in February 2019 also killed three researchers, officials said at the time. A rocket blast in August 2019 also caught the attention of then-President Donald Trump, who later tweeted a picture of covert surveillance of the launch failure.
Successive failures have raised suspicions of outside interference in Iran’s program, as Trump himself indicated at the time by tweeting that the United States was “not involved in a catastrophic crash.” But Lewis said such failures are common, especially when trying to carefully place objects in orbit around the earth.
Meanwhile, the Guard successfully unveiled its secret space program in April 2020 by successfully launching a satellite into orbit. The head of the US space command later dismissed the satellite as a “tumbling webcam in space” that would not provide Iran with significant intelligence – although it did demonstrate Tehran’s ability to successfully orbit. The launch follows the massive election of Iranian President-elect Ibrahim Raeesi, country’s hardline head of the judiciary tied to mass executions of 1988. The president will take over from outgoing Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a relatively moderate who led Tehran to a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the deal in 2018, setting off a few months of widespread tensions in Mediterranean that continue to this day. Diplomats in Vienna are now discussing a way to re-implement the agreement for both Iran and the United States, which has seen Iran agree to limit its nuclear enrichment in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.
The U.S. has alleged such satellite launches defy a U.N. Security Council resolution and called on Iran to undertake no activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. Iran, which long has said it does not seek nuclear weapons, previously maintained that its satellite launches and rocket tests do not have a military component. U.S. intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran abandoned an organized military nuclear program in 2003.
The Simorgh, however, is far too large and too slow to fuel to be a good carrier for a nuclear-tipped weapon, Lewis said.
“It’s a butter knife,” he added. “Could you stab someone with a butter knife? Yeah, but that’s not really the tool.”
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