TEHRAN, Iran — Iran launched a satellite into space on a rocket built by the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards on Saturday, state media reported, the latest in a series of plans that Western countries fear could help advance Iran’s ballistic missile program.
Iran said the launch was a success, marking the second time the rocket has sent a satellite into orbit. There was no immediate independent confirmation of the success of the launch.
Footage later released by Iranian media showed the rocket being fired from a mobile launch pad, and an analysis of the later released footage and other images by The Associated Press suggested the launch took place from a Guards launch pad outside the city of Shahrud, about 215 miles east of the capital, Tehran.
The launch comes amid rising tensions across the Middle East as Israel and Hamas continue their war in the Gaza Strip, during which Iran has launched unprecedented missile and drone attacks on Israel. Meanwhile, Iran continues to enrich uranium to near weapons-grade levels, raising concerns about Iran’s plans among nuclear nonproliferation experts.
Iran identified the rocket carrying the satellite as a Qa’em-100, which the Guard used for another successful launch in January. Qa’em means “upright” in Iranian Persian.
The three-stage solid-fuel rocket launched the 60-kilogram (132-pound) Chamran-1 satellite into orbit at an altitude of 550 kilometers (340 miles), state media said. The rocket was inscribed with a verse from the Quran: “What Allah has left behind is better for you, if ye are believers.”
State media said experts from a state subsidiary of the Iranian Defense Ministry and the Institute of Aerospace Research had built the satellite, along with others, to “test hardware and software systems for the verification of orbital maneuvering technologies,” without providing further details.
Gen. Hossein Salami, head of the Guard, praised the launch in a statement, saying the scientists had successfully overcome “an atmosphere of far-reaching and repressive international sanctions.”
The State Department and the U.S. military did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Iranian launch.
The United States has previously said Iran’s satellite launches violate UN Security Council resolutions and urged Tehran not to engage in any activity involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. UN sanctions over Iran’s ballistic missile program expired in October last year.
Under Iran’s former President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, the country slowed its space program for fear of escalating tensions with the West. President Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline protege of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who came to power in 2021, has pushed ahead with the program. Raisi died in a helicopter crash in May.
It is unclear what Iran’s new president, the reformist Massoud Pezeshkian, wants from the plan, as he was silent on the issue during the election campaign.
A global threat assessment released this year by U.S. intelligence agencies noted that if Iran develops a satellite-launch vehicle, it “could shorten the development time for an intercontinental ballistic missile” because similar technology would be used.
Intercontinental ballistic missiles can be used to deliver nuclear weapons. Iran is now producing near-weapon-grade uranium after its nuclear deal with world powers collapsed. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly warned that Iran has enough enriched uranium to make “several” nuclear weapons if it wanted to.
Iran has always denied developing nuclear weapons and says its space program, like its nuclear activities, is purely civilian, but U.S. intelligence agencies and the IAEA say Iran had an organized military nuclear program as late as 2003.
The launch comes ahead of the two-year anniversary of the death of 22-year-old Martha Amini, which sparked nationwide protests against Iran’s compulsory hijab law and Shiite theocracy.