Iran said Friday it conducted a successful space launch, the latest for its programme the West alleges improves Tehran’s ballistic missile programme.
Iran conducted the launch using its Simorgh programme, a satellite-carrying rocket that had had a series of failed launches. The launch took place at Iran’s Imam Khomeini Spaceport in rural Semnan province. There was no immediate independent confirmation the launch was successful. The announcement comes as heightened tensions grip the wider Middle East over Israel’s continued war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and as an uneasy ceasefire holds in Lebanon.
The United States has previously said Iran’s satellite launches defy a UN Security Council resolution and called on Tehran to undertake no activity involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. UN sanctions related to Iran’s ballistic missile programme expired in October 2023. Under Iran’s relatively moderate former President Hassan Rouhani, the Islamic Republic slowed its space programme for fear of raising tensions with the West. The late hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, a protege of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pushed the programme forward.
Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, who has been signalling he wants to negotiate with the West over sanctions, has yet to offer strategy when it comes to Iran’s ambitions in space. Intercontinental ballistic missiles can be used to deliver nuclear weapons. Iran is now producing uranium close to weapons-grade levels after the collapse of its nuclear deal with world powers. Tehran has enough enriched uranium for “several” nuclear weapons, if it chooses to produce them, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency repeatedly has warned.
Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons and says its space programme, like its nuclear activities, is for purely civilian purposes. However, US intelligence agencies and the IAEA say Iran had an organised military nuclear programme up until 2003.
