September 06, 2019
The Islamic Republic tried to launch its third satellite of 2019 and ended up with its third failure of the year.
This time the rocket did not even get off the launching pad. Western satellite photos show the launching pad was burned and debris was scattered about.
But a US spy satellite photo released by President Trump makes clear the rocket did not explode while being launched. Rather it blew up while it was being fueled. That points to a human error during fueling. And it means the rocket itself was not faulty.
The fact that the rocket blew up during fueling was indicated by the presence of damaged fuel trucks around the launch pad. They would have been driven far from the launch pad before any actual launch. In addition, the gantry that raises the rocket vertically and holds it in place while it is being worked on could be seen toppled over at the center of the launch pad. It would have been pulled back some distance before an actual launch.
After President Trump released the satellite close-up of the launch pad with a mocking tweet, Iranian Telecommunications Minister Mohammad-Javad Azari-Jahromi issued a mocking reply. He posted a photo of himself standing beside the Nahid 1 satellite and mocked Trump for saying the satellite had been destroyed. But Trump had never said the satellite had been destroyed.
Jahromi’s picture suggested the rocket blew up even before the launch team had gotten around to topping the rocket with the satellite.
Iranian reporters who knew the rocket had blown up asked Jahromi what had happened to the rocket. He ducked that question and said the reporters would have to ask the Defense Ministry, which he said was in charge of the rocket. In the past, Iran has claimed that Iran’s space program is civilian, so Jahromi’s comment was a slip of the tongue.
It wasn’t until five days after the rocket explosion that the Islamic Republic admitted the loss. Government spokesman Ali Rabii said the explosion was a “technical failure,” a standard comment by the regime when things go wrong, but one that conveys next to nothing. Rabii went out of his way to deny the loss was an act of sabotage, although no one has said it was.
Rabii also said no one was injured in the explosion, which was difficult to believe given that many technicians would normally be on the launch pad for fueling.
He also asserted that the explosion took place at a “test site” and not at a “launch site,” although the explosion site was a launch pad that has been used previously for satellite launches.
Back in January, Jahromi admitted to the failure to orbit another satellite and said nothing about the military running the launch efforts. He got into trouble then from critics who said he should never admit a failure by the regime. This time, he admitted to no failure.
In the past, Iran could just remain silent when launches failed. But nowadays there are many commercial satellites in orbit that frequently pass over Iran’s launch facility in Semnan province and take photos of the site. So, it is no longer possible for Iran to remain silent about satellite launches.
In fact, the August failure was the third failure to put a satellite into orbit this year. The others were in January and February. Foreign satellites saw scorch marks on the launch pad after those launches, indicating a rocket had taken off. But no satellites made it into orbit. Both those rockets failed to achieve the right height or angle to get the satellites into orbit.
Iran did not say what kind of rocket was being used for the August 28 launching. But the pad is the one that has been used by the Safir rocket, which has successfully lofted four satellites into orbit in past years before failing during a February orbiting effort. That rocket took off but did not get the satellite into orbit.
It isn’t known for certain how many of Iran’s satellite launches have been failures, but The New York Times said more than two-thirds have failed—far, far more than the 5 percent failure rate for satellite launches by the United States, Russia, China and Europe.
None of the satellites Iran has placed in orbit have stayed in orbit for even 100 days, meaning that the Safir is defective in some way so that it cannot place satellites where they are required to stay in orbit. Presumably, the Space Agency has made some adjustments. But the adjustments might have been defective given the failure last February. However, the latest failure on the launch pad is not likely to have had anything to do with such adjustments.
Five days after the latest explosion on the launch pad, the Islamic Republic still had not admitted what happened. No Iranian news outlet was seen to carry any story beyond those about Jahromi “rejecting claims about a failed satellite launch,” as many Iranian news outlets phrased it, thus avoiding directly denying the explosion through careful and misleading phraseology.
Two US commercial satellite firms released photos of the scorched launch pad August 29, prompting a raft of stories about the launch pad explosion, all of which Iran ignored. Then on the night of August 30, Trump tweeted the spy satellite photo showing far more detail. Along with the photo, Trump tweeted a denial that Washington had anything to do with the explosion—though no one had accused Washington of any such thing—followed by the mocking comment: “I wish Iran best wishes and good luck in determining what happened at Site One.”
Just days before the latest failure, Iran’s Space Agency issued a new satellite launching plan, announcing it planned to put three small satellites into orbit before next Now Ruz.
As the attached table of announcements on satellite launches shows, the Space Agency has an absolutely horrible record of carrying out its plans. Of 14 satellites it has announced plans to launch in the last six years, only three are known to have actually been launched—and two of them failed to go into orbit.
The other 11 satellites are still awaiting launch—or were aboard rockets that failed to do their job.
The satellite that was meant to be aboard the August 28 rocket was the Nahid 1. But Nahid 1’s orbiting has been imminent for the past six years. On January 31, 2013, Iran said Nahid 1 would be launched within the next eight days. It wasn’t. Then Iran said Nahid 1 would go into orbit by Now Ruz 2013, by Now Ruz 2015, by Now Ruz 2018, by Now Ruz 2019, during June 2019, and, in the latest announcement, by Now Ruz 2020.
The latest announcement also says the Zafar and the Pars 1 satellites will be launched by Now Ruz 2020—though they were originally to be orbited years ago.
The announcement of the latest launch plans was made by Morteza Barari, who became chief of the Space Agency one year ago.
Barari said the Nahid 1 would be Iran’s first communications satellite and would fly in an orbit 240 kilometers above the earth for 2-1/2 months. The longest Iran has yet been able to keep a satellite in orbit was 80 days—and that was the survival time of Iran’s first satellite, Omid, launched 10 years ago.
That says something about Iran’s satellite program. In 10 years, it has not been able to keep satellites in orbit any longer. It has spent a decade trying to master the ability to control a rocket so as to get a satellite placed right so it will stay in orbit. It still has not been able to do that.
The first Iranian-owned satellite, Sina 1, was lofted by Russia October 29, 2005, and is still in orbit after almost 14 years. For that matter, the Vanguard 1, which was the second satellite the United States ever orbited, is still circling the earth 61 years after its launch. But after at least six satellite launches over a decade, Iran has not mastered the technique the US Space Agency had mastered by its second launch, which came just six weeks after the US put its first satellite into orbit.
President Rohani reportedly viewed Iran’s space program as a waste of money and canceled it after he took office in 2013. But others appealed to the Supreme Leader and the program was later resumed.