[ad_1]
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Iran admitted on Wednesday it is planning two tests of its new solid propellant rocket, after satellite photos showed preparations on a desert launch pad previously used in the program, despite high tensions over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program.
Defense Ministry spokesman Ahmed Hosseini said the Islamic Republic will launch its satellite-carrying Zuljanah rocket twice more after a previous launch, the state-run IRNA news agency quoted. It didn’t elaborate on a timeframe for the tests and didn’t say when the previous launch took place.
Hosseini said each of the three stages of Zuljanah will be evaluated during the tests.
Satellite images taken by Maxar Technologies on Tuesday showed preparations on a launch pad at the Imam Khomeini Spaceport in Iran’s rural Semnan province.
A series of images showed a rocket on a carrier preparing to be lifted and landed on the launch tower. A later image Tuesday afternoon showed the rocket apparently in the tower.
While it’s unclear when the launch will occur, planting a rocket typically means that the launch is imminent. Sensing flashes of light from space, NASA fire satellites did not see any activity on the site until late Tuesday night until Wednesday.
PHOTOS: Iran says rocket launch is coming after photo shows preparation
Asked about the preparations, State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington that the United States urged Iran to de-escalate the situation.
“Iran has consistently chosen to escalate tensions. “It is Iran that has consistently chosen to take provocative actions,” Price said.
A Pentagon spokesman, U.S. Army Major Rob Lodewick, said the U.S. military will “continue to closely monitor Iran’s pursuit of viable space launch technology and how it may relate to developments in its overall ballistic missile program.”
“Iranian aggression, including the proven threat posed by its various missile programs, remains a major concern for our forces in the region,” Lodewick said.
Over the past decade, Iran has sent several short-lived satellites into orbit, and in 2013 it sent a monkey into space. However, the program has seen troubles lately. There have been five consecutive failed launches for the Simorgh program, a type of satellite-carrying rocket. A fire at the Imam Khomeini Spaceport in February 2019 also killed three researchers, officials said.
The launch pad used in Tuesday’s preparations bears the traces of an explosion in August 2019 that even drew the attention of then-President Donald Trump. He then tweeted what appeared to be a sneak peek footage of the launch failure.
Satellite images from February showed Zuljanah launch earlier this year, but Iran has not acknowledged it.
Successive failures have raised suspicion of foreign interference in Iran’s program; this was something Trump implied at the time by tweeting that “the United States was not “involved in the catastrophic accident”. However, no evidence of bad play has been presented in any of the failures, and space launches remain challenging even for the world’s most successful programs.
Meanwhile, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards successfully launched a satellite into orbit in April 2020, revealing its own secret space program. The Guard launched another satellite this March to another area in Semnan province just east of Iran’s capital, Tehran.
John Krzyzaniak, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, predicted on Tuesday that Iran would test another Zuljanah. Krzyzaniak suggested earlier this week that a launch is imminent based on activity on the ground.
The name of the rocket, Zuljanah, comes from the horse of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Iranian state television broadcast footage of a successful Zuljanah launch in February 2021.
Preparations for the launch came when the Guardians reportedly saw one of their soldiers “martyred” under unclear circumstances over the weekend in Semnan province. But Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics later claimed that the man was working for it. Zuljanah was designed by that ministry.
The US claimed that Iran’s satellite launches violated the UN Security Council resolution and urged Tehran to take no action related to ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The U.S. intelligence community’s 2022 threat assessment, released in March, claims that such a satellite launch vehicle “shortens the timeline” for an intercontinental ballistic missile for Iran because it uses “similar technologies.”
Iran, which has long said it has not sought nuclear weapons, has previously claimed that satellite launches and rocket tests do not have a military component. US intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran abandoned an organized military nuclear program in 2003.
However, Iran’s preparations for a possible launch have emerged in recent days as tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program have escalated. Iran now says it will remove 27 IAEA surveillance cameras from its nuclear facilities as it enriches more uranium to weapons-grade levels than ever before.
Both Iran and the United States insist that they are willing to re-enter the nuclear deal Tehran signed with world powers in 2015. By unilaterally pulling America out of the deal in 2018, Trump mobilized a series of attacks and conflicts that began in 2019 and continue today under President Joe Biden’s administration.
Talks on reviving the deal in Vienna have been “paused” since March.
Analysts say it will take more time to build a nuclear bomb if Iran pursues a weapon, although Tehran warns that their advances make the program more dangerous. Israel has threatened in the past to launch a preemptive strike to stop Iran, and a recent series of killings targeting Iranian officials is already suspected.
[ad_2]
Source link