Iran successfully tests satellite launch rocket
Rocket test breaches UN resolution: US
TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran on Thursday “successfully” tested a satellite-launch rocket, days after warning Washington of a response to new U.S. sanctions over the Islamic republic’s ballistic missile program, state television said.
It said the launch vehicle, named Simorgh after a bird in Iranian mythology, was capable of propelling a satellite weighing 250 kilograms (550 pounds) to an altitude of 500 kilometers (300 miles) above earth.
The launch marked the official inauguration of Iran’s Imam Khomeini space center, named after the late founder of the Islamic republic, built for sending satellites into space, the television said.
State television broadcast footage of the takeoff from the space centre in eastern Iran’s Semnan province, the site of past such launches.
The centrer, whose exact location was not disclosed, is on “an immense site used for the preparation, launch, control and guidance of all satellite launch vehicles,” said the defense ministry which is in charge of Iran’s space program.
“We can do it,” read a slogan on the rocket.
Western states suspect Iran of developing the technology capable of launching long-range ballistic missiles with conventional or nuclear payloads, a charge denied by Tehran which insists its space programme has purely peaceful aims.
Iran’s four other launches of domestically produced satellites since 2009 have all sparked condemnation in the West.
Hours after Iran’s latest announcement, the United States called the launch an act that undermined regional stability and said it appeared to violate U.N. Security Council resolutions.
“We consider that to be continued ballistic missile development,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters. “We consider this to be provocative action.”
Nauert added that if confirmed, the test could be a “violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.”
Tensions have mounted between Washington and Tehran, which severed diplomatic ties after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, since U.S. President Donald Trump took office six months ago.