Iran Launches Three Satellites Into Space As Tensions Rise in Middle East

Iran announced on Sunday that it has launched three satellites into orbit with success. The most recent launch is part of a program that the West claims enhances Tehran’s ballistic missile defenses.

According to the state-run IRNA news agency, Iran’s Simorgh rocket, which has had several mishaps in the past, was also successfully used in this launch.

The launch occurred at a time when Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip is causing increased tensions throughout the Middle East.

Despite avoiding using force to assist in the conflict, Iran has come under growing pressure from its theocracy to take action following a deadly suicide bombing by the Islamic State earlier this month and as assaults associated with the war being carried out by proxy groups like the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

State media in Iran has published footage of the Simorgh rocket launch at night.

According to an Associated Press examination of the footage’s specifics, the scene was shot at Iran’s rural Semnan province’s Imam Khomeini Spaceport.

“The roar of the Simorgh (rocket) resonated in our country’s sky and infinite space,” State TV correspondent Abbas Rasooli stated in the video.

The satellites Mahda, Kayhan-2, and Hatef-1 were named by state television. Mahda was characterized as a research satellite, whereas Kayhan and Hatef were nanosatellites with a focus on communication and global positioning, respectively.

Isa Zarepour, Iran’s Minister of Information and Communications Technology, said that the Mahda has already transmitted messages back to Earth.

The Simorgh program, which aims to launch another rocket that carries satellites, has had five consecutive unsuccessful launches.

A string of mishaps for Iran’s civilian space program in recent years, including deadly fires and a launchpad rocket explosion that caught the attention of former US President Donald Trump, have included the Simorgh, or “Phoenix,” rocket failures.

The US has repeatedly demanded that Tehran refrain from using ballistic missiles that are capable of carrying nuclear weapons and stated that Iran’s satellite launches violate a resolution passed by the UN Security Council. The UN’s sanctions against Iran for its ballistic missile development ended in October of last year.

The development of satellite launch vehicles “shortens the timeline” for Iran to create an intercontinental ballistic missile because it leverages similar technology, according to the US intelligence community’s 2023 worldwide threat assessment.

The Islamic Republic of Iran halted its space program under the comparatively moderate previous president Hassan Rouhani out of concern over escalating hostilities with the West.

But since then, the nuclear agreement that Mr. Rouhani negotiated with major international powers in 2015 has fallen apart, and hostilities with the US have been escalating for years.

Pushing the initiative forward, is President Ebrahim Raisi, a 2021-elected acolyte of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Although Tehran is not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, US intelligence agencies and others believe Iran is enriching uranium to levels closer to weapons-grade and enough material for multiple atomic bombs than before.

The Islamic Revolution of 1979, decades of sanctions, and the US Embassy hostage situation prevented Tehran from obtaining sophisticated fighter jets and other weapon systems, resulting in Tehran having the greatest arsenal of ballistic missiles in the Middle East.

Remarks were not immediately returned by the State Department or the US military. But in a discreet statement, the US military revealed that an Iranian satellite launch in January was successful.