September 21, 2018
LAUNCHING — Iran now says it will launch its next satellite in January. It will have then been almost four years since Iran orbited its last satellite in February 2015. As the table here shows, Iranian officials have made numerous proclamations over the last six years about many satellite launchings, but only a single one has yet materialized, that of the Fajr satellite in 2015. But the Fajr only stayed in orbit 24 days. None of Iran’s four satellites have remained in orbit longer than 80 days—not long enough to do anything. So the key question is whether the next one can stay up once its reaches orbit. The interesting thing about the latest announcement is that it wasn’t made by one of the officials of Iran’s civilian space agency, but by Deputy Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Qasem Taqizadeh.