Jon Gambrell, The Associated Press Published Tuesday, June 14, 2022 3:56 PM EDT Last Updated on Tuesday, June 14, 2022 8:45 PM EDT
DUBAI, UAE (Iran) – Iran appeared ready for space launch on Tuesday as satellite images showed a rocket on a rural desert launch pad, as tensions continue. high by the Tehran nuclear program.
Images from Maxar Technologies showed a launch pad at the Imam Khomeini spaceport in Iran’s rural province of Semnan, the site of frequent recent failed attempts to put a satellite into orbit.
A set of images showed a rocket on a carrier, preparing to be lifted and placed on a launch tower. A later image from Tuesday afternoon showed the rocket apparently in the tower.
Iran did not recognize a launch near the spaceport and its mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
However, its state news agency IRNA said in May that Iran would likely have seven home satellites ready for launch by the end of the Persian calendar year in March 2023. A Defense Ministry official also went recently suggest that Iran could soon test its new solid. satellite-powered rocket called Zuljanah.
It was unclear when the launch would take place, although launching a rocket usually means the launch is imminent. NASA fire satellites, which detect light flashes from space, did not immediately see any activity at the site on Tuesday night.
Asked about the preparations, State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington that the US is urging Iran to escalate the situation.
“Iran has constantly chosen to increase tensions. It is Iran that has constantly chosen to take provocative action,” Price said.
A spokesman for the Pentagon, U.S. Army Major Rob Lodewick, said the U.S. military will “continue to monitor closely Iran’s search for viable space launch technology and how it can relate to advances in its global ballistic missile program “.
“Iranian aggression, to include 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 launched several short-lived satellites into orbit and in 2013 launched a monkey into space. However, the program has suffered from recent problems. There have been five consecutive failed launches for the Simorgh program, a type of satellite carrier rocket. A fire at the Imam Khomeini spaceport in February 2019 also killed three investigators, authorities said at the time.
The launch pad used in Tuesday’s preparations is marked by an explosion in August 2019 that even caught the attention of then-President Donald Trump. He later tweeted what appeared to be a classified surveillance image of the launch failure. Satellite imagery in February suggested a failed launch of Zuljana earlier this year, although Iran did not recognize it.
Subsequent failures led to suspicion of outside interference in Iran’s program, which Trump himself hinted at tweeting at the time that the United States “was not involved in the catastrophic crash.” However, no evidence has been offered showing gross play in any of the failures, and space launches remain a challenge for even the most successful programs in the world.
Meanwhile, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard unveiled its own secret space program in April 2020, successfully launching a satellite into orbit. The Guard launched another satellite in March at another location in Semnan Province, just east of the Iranian capital Tehran.
Judging by the launch pad used, Iran is likely preparing for the Zuljana test launch, said John Krzyzaniak, an associate researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Krzyzaniak earlier this week suggested that a launch was imminent depending on the activity on the site.
The rocket’s name, Zuljana, comes from the horse of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Iranian state television aired footage of a successful Zuljana launch in February 2021.
Launch preparations are also underway when the Guard saw one of its soldiers as a “martyr” in Semnan province in unclear circumstances over the weekend. The Ministry of Defense and Logistics of the Armed Forces of Iran, however, later stated that the man was working for him.
The United States has claimed that Iran’s satellite launches defy a UN Security Council resolution and has called on Tehran not to carry out any ballistic missile-related activity capable of delivering nuclear weapons. The U.S. intelligence community’s 2022 threat assessment, published in March, states that this satellite launch vehicle “shortens the timeline” of an intercontinental ballistic missile for the United States. Iran because it uses “similar technologies”.
Iran, which has long said it is not looking for nuclear weapons, has previously argued that its satellite launches and rocket tests have no military component. U.S. intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran abandoned an organized military nuclear program in 2003.
However, Iran’s likely preparations for the launch come as tensions have risen in recent days over Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran now says it will withdraw 27 IAEA surveillance cameras from its nuclear sites as it now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons quality levels.
Both Iran and the United States insist they are ready to re-enter the 2015 Tehran nuclear deal with world powers, which has seen the Islamic Republic drastically curb its enrichment in exchange for lifting sanctions. economic. Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the deal in 2018, launching a series of attacks and clashes from 2019 that continue today under the administration of President Joe Biden.
Talks in Vienna over the reactivation of the agreement have been “paused” since March.
Building a nuclear bomb would take even longer in Iran if it were to pursue a weapon, analysts say, but warns that Tehran’s advances make the program more dangerous. Israel has in the past threatened to carry out a pre-emptive strike to stop Iran, and a number of recent killings of Iranian officials are already suspected.