Ayatollahs in Orbit

Tehran is about to send its first satel­lite into space, says the Jerusalem-​​based Isracast.

By the end of September a Russian Cosmos 3 mis­sile will be launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome 800 km north of Moscow, car­ry­ing two Iranian satel­lites into orbit. Although the satel­lites are claimed to be for mete­o­ro­log­i­cal and exper­i­men­tal pur­poses, experts believe that one of them will pos­sess sur­veil­lance capa­bil­i­ties allow­ing it to observe American and Israeli mil­i­tary facil­i­ties through­out the Middle East…
The Iranian Satellite to be launched called the Mesbah, which lit­er­ally means lantern, has been in the works for the last eight years and reached matu­rity after col­lab­o­ra­tion between Iranian and Italian engi­neers. The Italian com­pany Carlo Gavazzi Space (CGS), who assisted in the Iranian space effort to develop the Mesbah also con­tributed exten­sive knowl­edge to its part­ners and as a result, Iranian offi­cials have been quoted as being opti­mistic regard­ing their abil­ity to inde­pen­dently launch more advanced satel­lites in the next sev­eral years.
The 65-​​75kg Mesbah will, accord­ing offi­cial Iranian sources, be used as a tool for col­lect­ing data on ground and water resources and mete­o­ro­log­i­cal con­di­tions, and will also be used to con­trol power sup­ply sys­tems and pipelines. However, var­i­ous intel­li­gence sources report that the satel­lite will also have lim­ited sur­veil­lance capa­bil­i­ties and will be used by Iran to gather intel­li­gence infor­ma­tion on neigh­bor­ing coun­tries includ­ing American bases in Iraq, the Gulf and Israel. The satel­lite is expected to remain in orbit for three years and some experts say it will be able to con­tinue oper­a­tions for up to five years. Along side the Mesbah, the Russian Cosmos 3 will report­edly launch a smaller Iranian satel­lite named Sinah-​​1. This 20kg domes­ti­cally made satel­lite was meant to be launched using Iran’s own launcher as a tech­nol­ogy demon­stra­tor, but for unknown rea­sons will even­tu­ally be launched using the Russian booster.
Nations around the world have raised con­cern regard­ing the ongo­ing efforts by the Iranian gov­ern­ment to acquire advanced mil­i­tary capa­bil­i­ties includ­ing inde­pen­dent satel­lite launch­ing capa­bil­i­ties which are directly linked to the devel­op­ment of its bal­lis­tic mis­sile pro­gram. Tal Inbar, senior research fel­low at the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, told IsraCast that the devel­op­ment of the Iranian space pro­gram will allow Iran to con­tinue the devel­op­ment of its long-​​range bal­lis­tic mis­sile pro­gram sur­pass­ing the watch­ful eye the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the orga­ni­za­tion in charged of pre­vent­ing the pro­lif­er­a­tion of mis­sile tech­nol­ogy. Technologies that accom­pany the devel­op­ment of satel­lites such as micro elec­tron­ics can also be used as a cover for the devel­op­ment of small size nuclear weapons which will fit the advanced ver­sion of the Shihab mis­sile, says Inbar… 

September 23rd, 2005 | Space | 16566 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2005/09/23/ayatollahs-in-orbit/Ayatollahs+in+Orbit2005-09-23+16%3A03%3A44dupont You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.