Iran showed a mockup of the Simorgh rocket in 2010 and boasted about it for about a year. But nothing has been said in recent months, suggesting there are problems with it.
As with all previous launches, the latest launch was only announced after the fact. That way Iran could just ignore it if it had failed.
But oddly the regime did not release any film of the launch, and state television and newspapers used photos from previous launches.
While some might suspect that meant the launch failed, the US space tracking system confirmed that Navid was indeed in orbit. Readers can go to http://www.n2yo.com/passes/?s=38075, which lists Navid’s passes and when it can best be observed overhead.
Iran’s last space launch was last September. It was not announced. In October, Deputy Science Minister Mohammad Mehdinejad-Nuri acknowledged circumspectly that it had failed. He said a Kavoshgar rocket was launched with a monkey on board but “the launch was not publicized as all of its anticipated objectives were not accomplished.” In other words, the monkey did not survive.
The government said Navid is equipped with cameras to take pictures of the earth. It said photos were being sent back to five ground stations in Iran. However, no photos were released. Pictures from the previous satellites were not released either. Only photos from the satellite built and lofted by Russia for Iran have been released.
The Iranian Space Agency announced Sunday that all links had been restored with Navid, acknowledging that it had lost contact with Navid at some point.
Hamid Fazeli, the head of the Space Agency, said Navid would collect weather data and monitor for natural disasters. He said the satellite would remain in orbit about three months.
Its orbit, according to US space trackers, ranges from 282 kilometers to 380 kilometers high. It takes 91 minutes to circle the earth on each pass.
Iran has placed two satellites in orbit previously. Omid (Hope) was orbited February 3, 2009, and circled the earth 82 days before its orbit decayed and it fell into the atmosphere and burned up. Rasad (Observer) was launched June 15 of last year. That was two years and four months after the first launch, a long time span with no explanation. (The United States and the Soviet Union each launched their second satellites just weeks after their firsts.) The second Iranian satellite weighed only one-half as much as the first. It stayed in orbit a mere three weeks, suggesting the ability to guide the launching rocket was poor.
Navid is the heaviest of the three. Omid weighed in at 27 kilos (59 pounds) and Rasad at 15 kilos (33 pounds), while Navid weighs 50 kilos (110 pounds).
Last June, Fazeli said the Navid would be orbited in February. While most announcements of launch dates have proven overly optimistic and been put off repeatedly, the launch date for Navid was met. On the Navid launch, President Ahmadi-nejad said two more satellites would be launched in the upcoming Persian year, Fajr (Dawn) and Tolou (Sunrise).
Navid was produced by Elm o Sanat, the Science and Technology University, and was intentionally launched during the celebration of the anniversary of the revolution and on the third anniversary of Iran’s first satellite launch.
The 72-foot Safir rocket used to loft all of Iran’s satellites is a two-stage rocket based on the Shahab-3 military booster. It is thought to have the capacity to carry a 110-pound satellite at max, so the Navid would be at Safir’s end capability.
There are currently about 3,000 satellites in orbit and new satellites are added at the rate of two a week.
Iran is only the ninth country to put a satellite into orbit on board its own rocket. The others are the Soviet Union in 1957, the United States in 1958, France in 1965, Japan in 1970, China in 1970, Britain in 1971, India in 1980 and Israel in 1988.