Iran fails again in its attempt to put a satellite into orbit

The regime of Iran has tried and failed again. This Sunday the Islamic Republic launched a satellite called 'Zafar' (translated as victory) into space, but it couldn’t put it into orbit, according to the Iranian Space Agency. The launch of this local manufactured satellite has been criticized by the US government which considers this kind of acts as a "provocation".  

The symbolic character of this rocket was that it was going to transmit the image of the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US bombardment at the beginning of this 2020.  "The launch of the 'Zafar' satellite has failed, as did many other American scientific projects such as 'Falcon 9', 'Juno II', 'Atlas', 'Proton M' and 'Antares'. Even so, we are unstoppable. There are still many Iranian satellites to come", said the Minister of Telecommunications, Mohamad Yavad Azeri Yahromi, through his Twitter account.

The Minister of Telecommunications has announced that next June a copy of the satellite 'Zafar' will be sent into space. Several hours before this launch took place, Yahromí announced that this was the first time that Iran tried to put a satellite into orbit at an altitude of 530 meters.

This investigation satellite was developed by specialists and researchers of the University of Science and Technology with the objective of obtaining visual resources and being able to send and save images.  Among the missions of the satellite were to produce a series of maps and reports and to monitor data on natural disasters, the evolution of lakes or oil reserves.

This failed launch coincided with the presentation of a new missile called 'Raad-500', which marked a before and after in missile and satellite carrier propulsion systems, as it was equipped with a new propulsion engine. In this ceremony, General Salami praised the words of Ayatollah Khomeini in which he assured that "being strong is the essence of the new defence policies of the Islamic Republic".

Meanwhile, the United States considers that these attempts to put satellites into orbit are a "provocation" that hides a project to develop ballistic missiles. However, Tehran has reported that its activities have no military purpose. All of this has taken place in an atmosphere of tension between Washington and Iran, after the United States withdrew in May 2018 from the agreement on Iran's nuclear programme and announced a series of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Iran launched in 2009, its first own-made satellite known as the 'Omid' or 'Hope'. A year later they sent the first capsule with experimental animals and in the following years they put two more satellites into orbit. In January 2019, the authorities failed to launch the satellite 'Payam', which also failed to achieve enough speed to get into orbit. Over the next four months, Iran has time to improve its rocket launch system, a system that will continue to be seen by the United States as a threat to international security.