Last week, the Pentagon released an unclassified summary of its Annual Report on Military Power of Iran, dated January 13. Inside Defense wrote a story on it, “DOD: Iran, With Foreign Help, Could Demonstrate ICBM By 2015”. Read More
Posts Tagged ‘Iran’
Markus Schiller’s Analysis of North Korea’s Unha-3 Launcher
February 22nd, 2013
North Korea’s launches of its Unha-3 rocket in April and December 2012, along with the recovery and analysis of debris from the December launch, have provided a lot of new information that was not previously available. That information has allowed me and others to reassess our earlier conclusions about Pyongyang’s rocket, and has led to some significant changes. Read More
Timeline for an Iranian Solid-fuel ICBM?
February 10th, 2013
In assessing the ballistic missile threat, a key issue is estimating how long it might take countries like North Korea and Iran to build missiles that could carry a nuclear-warhead-sized payload to the United States. Both countries use liquid fuel in their satellite launchers and have developed that technology further than solid fuel. Read More
Iran’s Launch Today–and in the Future
January 28th, 2013
Iran’s English Language outlet Press TV reports today that today (Monday) Iran has successfully launched a monkey on a suborbital flight in its new capsule called Pishgam (Pioneer). The Iranian Fars news agency said the capsule was lofted to the desired altitude of 120 km, sent back telemetry, and returned to earth where the monkey was retrieved safely. Read More
South Korea’s Analysis of North Korea’s Rocket Debris
January 25th, 2013
South Korea recently released a short summary (in Korean) of its analysis of the pieces it recovered of North Korea’s first stage from its Dec. 11 satellite launch. Parts of the analysis have been showing up in the South Korean press in the last few days. Read More
Iran Exaggerates Missile Accuracy
August 4th, 2012
Iran announced today that it had successfully test launched a new version of its short-range Fateh 110 missile, claiming it has an upgraded guidance system that gives it high enough accuracy to “hit and destroy both land and sea targets, enemy concentration points, command centers, missile sites, ammunition dumps, radars and other targets with 100 percent precision.”
This claim is not credible, for the following reason. Read More
Iran’s Upcoming Launch: Fajr Satellite
May 18th, 2012
Iran has announced its plan to launch the Fajr (Dawn) satellite as early as next Wednesday, May 23. The Fajr, as you may recall, was meant to be launched in October 2011, and then by the end of the last Iranian year (which ended this past March 19). Read More
Another Iranian Satellite Launch: Navid
February 6th, 2012
Iran successfully launched its third satellite into orbit on Friday, Feb. 3 at 3:34 am local time in Iran (7:04 pm Feb. 2 EST), 2 years and a day after placing its first satellite, Omid, into space.
The satellite was the 50 kg Navid which was reportedly built by students at the Sharif University of Technology. Read More
Future Iranian Satellite Launches
June 24th, 2011
Iran has outlined an ambitious space plan for the coming years. While a lot of conflicting information has been reported, here is our current understanding of the program.
Last week, the head of the Iranian Space Agency, Hamid Fazeli, announced that Iran would be launching two more satellites, the Fajr and Navid satellites in the next year, and that Kavoshgar 5 (Explorer 5), a 285 kg space capsule, would carry animals into space on a suborbital trajectory. Read More
Rasad-1: Iran Launches Its Second Satellite
June 16th, 2011
Figure 1: A drawing of the Rasad satellite by turbosquid.
Yesterday, Iran launched its second satellite, Rasad-1 (Observation-1), into orbit.
The U.S. Space Surveillance Network (SSN), which uses a sophisticated set of sensors to track objects in space, located two objects from the launch and added them to its catalog of space objects, confirming that Rasad achieved orbit. Read More
