Iran space programme launches rocket

Iran space programme launches rocket

By Anna Fifield in Tehran

Published: February 4 2008 11:08 | Last updated: February 4 2008 20:37

Iran on Monday launched a rocket to mark a space programme that it said would put the first Iranian satellite into orbit within a year.

The rocket was launched to cries of “God is great” in front of President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, who told a televised ceremony before the launch: “We need to have an active and influential presence in space.”

He added: “Building and launching a satellite is a very important achievement ... Iran took its first step [towards a space programme] very strongly, precisely and wisely.”

The US, which is leading efforts to secure a third set of United Nations sanctions against Iran for its nuclear enrichment activities, described the firing of the rocket as “unfortunate”.

“It further isolates the country from the rest of the world,” said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

The rocket, which the Islamic Republic News Agency described as a “space research unit”, was launched from a space centre, opened on Monday by Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, who also unveiled Iran’s first domestically built satellite, the Omid or Hope. It took 10 years to build and would be launched into orbit in the next year, the agency said.

Stellar race identified
with status

Competing in the space race is increasingly seen as a mark of great status by a clutch of emerging countries. India recently joined the exclusive club that could build and launch satellites, dominated for many years by the US, European Union, Russia, China and Japan, writes Andrew Bounds in Brussels.

With wars fought with sophisticated guided weaponry, satellite navigation is also seen as a military necessity. The US’s global positioning system faces a clutch of rivals being developed around the world.

Russia is modernising its cold war-era Glonass system while China is building its Beidou programme from scratch. The EU last year finally committed to its Galileo navigation system. All should come into operation early in the next decade.

State television showed what appeared to be a single-stage rocket shooting into the sky, leaving a trail of white smoke, but reports did not say what altitude the rocket reached. Experts said there was no sign yet it represented a technological advance.

Last February, Iran also said it had launched a space rocket but there were doubts about the claim. Shannon Kile, a senior non-proliferation expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said: “In the past, there has been a lot less there than meets the eye.” Past space launch vehicles had been modifications of Soviet-developed Scud rockets: “It’s pretty much your grandmother’s technology they have been using.”

Mr Kile distinguished between the country’s rocket programme, which does not appear to have advanced significantly beyond basic Soviet missile technology, and the country’s missile programme.

The missile programme is run by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard and has used technologies that go beyond the Scud. Iran has tested a missile with a possible range of up to 2,000km.

Iranian reports said a parachute dropped from the rocket, which Mr Kile said could have carried measurements related to the launch.

But some analysts said the launch could not be viewed separately from Tehran’s military endeavours.

Jon Wolfsthal, a non-proliferation expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said: “We have to view this as another sign that Iran is committed to its nuclear and missile ambitions. A space launcher and a ballistic missile are essentially the same.”