Dubai, United Arab Emirates –
Iran admitted on Wednesday that it is planning two tests for its new solid-fuel missile after satellite images showed preparations for a desert launch site previously used in the program, although tensions remain high over Tehran’s fast-growing nuclear program.
The Islamic Republic will launch its Zuljanah satellite rocket twice more after a previous launch, the state news agency IRNA was quoted as saying by Defense Ministry spokesman Ahmad Hosseini. He did not specify a time frame for the tests, nor did he say when the previous launch took place.
Each of Zuljanah’s three stages will be assessed during the tests, Hosseini said.
Satellite images taken by Maxar Technologies on Tuesday show preparations for a launch site at the Imam Khomeini spaceport in Iran’s Semnan province, the site of frequent recent failed attempts to launch a satellite into orbit.
A set of images showed a rocket on a conveyor preparing to lift and place a launch tower. An image later on Tuesday afternoon showed the rocket apparently on the tower.
Although it is not clear when the launch will take place, the launch of a rocket usually means that the launch is inevitable. NASA fire satellites, which detect lightning from space, did not immediately notice any activity over the site late Tuesday night.
Asked about the preparations, State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington that the United States was calling on Iran to de-escalate the situation.
“Iran has consistently chosen to escalate tensions. Iran has consistently chosen to take provocative action,” Price said.
Pentagon spokesman Rob Lodewick, a U.S. Army major, said the U.S. military would “continue to closely monitor Iran’s pursuit of viable space launch technology and how it may relate to progress in its overall ballistic missile program.” .
“Iranian aggression, including the demonstrated threat from its various missile programs, continues to be a major concern for our forces in the region,” Lodevik said.
Over the past decade, Iran has sent several short-range satellites into orbit, and in 2013 launched a monkey into space. However, the program had recent problems. There have been five consecutive failed launches of the Simorgh satellite-type rocket program. A fire at the Imam Khomeini spaceport in February 2019 also killed three researchers, authorities said at the time.
The launch pad used in Tuesday’s preparations remains the mark of an explosion in August 2019 that even caught the attention of then-President Donald Trump. He later tweeted what looked like a classified image from watching the failed launch.
Satellite images from February suggest a failed Zuljanah launch earlier this year, although Iran has not acknowledged it.
Successive failures have raised suspicions of outside interference in Iran’s agenda, something Trump himself hinted at when he tweeted at the time that the United States “was not involved in the catastrophic catastrophe.” However, no evidence has been proposed to show wicked play in any of the failures, and space launches remain a challenge for even the world’s most successful programs.
Meanwhile, the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in April 2020 unveiled its own secret space program by successfully launching a satellite into orbit. The guard launched another satellite this March elsewhere in the province of Semnan, just east of the Iranian capital Tehran.
John Krzyzanyak, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, predicted on Tuesday that Iran would test another Zulyana. Earlier this week, Krzyzanyak suggested that the launch was inevitable based on the site’s activity.
The name of the rocket, Zuljanah, comes from the horse of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Iranian state television broadcast footage of the successful launch of Zuljanah in February 2021.
Preparations for the launch also come after it was reported that the guard saw one of its soldiers “martyred” in the province of Semnan under unclear circumstances over the weekend. However, the Ministry of Defense and Logistics of the Iranian Armed Forces later claimed that the man worked for him. Zuljanah was designed by this ministry.
The United States says Iranian satellite launches oppose a UN Security Council resolution and called on Tehran not to take any action on ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. A 2022 U.S. intelligence assessment of the threat, released in March, said such a launch vehicle “shortens the timeline” to an intercontinental ballistic missile for Iran because it uses “similar technology.”
Iran, which has long said it is not looking for nuclear weapons, has previously said its satellite launches and missile tests have no military component. U.S. intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran abandoned an organized military nuclear program in 2003.
However, Iran’s likely preparations for a launch come as tensions have escalated in recent days over Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran now says it will remove 27 IAEA surveillance cameras from its nuclear facilities as it enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons levels.
Both Iran and the United States insist they are ready to re-enter Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which saw the Islamic Republic drastically limit its enrichment in exchange for lifting economic sanctions. Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the agreement in 2018, launching a series of attacks and confrontations beginning in 2019, which continue today in the administration of President Joe Biden.
Talks in Vienna to resume the deal have been “paused” since March.
However, building a nuclear bomb would take longer for Iran if it pursues weapons, analysts say, although they warn Tehran’s progress makes the program more dangerous. In the past, Israel has threatened to strike a preemptive strike to stop Iran – and is now a suspect in a series of recent killings targeting Iranian officials.
——
Associated Press writer Amir Wahdat of Tehran, Iran, contributed to the report.
Add Comment