Iran test-fired a new rocket capable of carrying a satellite into orbit, the Iranian state news media reported on Sunday. Western experts said the launching represented a potentially significant if much delayed step in Iran’s efforts to join the international space club.
The report of the test flight comes amid growing Western nervousness over Iran’s nuclear program and concerns that it could one day use its missile expertise to threaten enemies with annihilation by means of nuclear warheads.
On Sunday, Iranian television broadcast images of the nighttime rocket launching and said the satellite itself had been fired into orbit. But officials later said only the rocket had been launched, correcting news reports that a satellite had flown into space.
PHOTO: AFP
The White House said Iran’s rocket announcement was “troubling,” calling it part of a pattern of Iranian activity to build a nuclear program and the means to launch a potential weapon.
“The Iranian development and testing of rockets is troubling and raises further questions about their intentions,” a White House spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said on Sunday.
Rocket scientists agree that the same technology that puts satellites into orbit can also deliver warheads.
An administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns, said on Sunday that the best US information indicated that the Iranian effort had failed, and that the missile or the dummy satellite, or both, had broken up.
Charles Vick, an Iranian rocket expert at GlobalSecurity.org, a research group in Alexandria, Virginia, said the launching in theory represented a significant step because it appeared to be Iran’s first firing of a rocket with more than one stage. The rocket was identified by state news media as the Safir-e Omid, or Ambassador of Peace, and was said to have fired two stages. Vick said the first stage consisted of a Shahab, a standard rocket in Iran’s arsenal, topped by a liquid-fueled second stage and possibly a small solid-fueled third stage.
Meanwhile, IAEA deputy director in charge of inspections, Olli Heinonen, was in Iran earlier this month asking Tehran to provide more information about its questionable missile-related activities, diplomats in Vienna said.
Iran has so far said it was not the agency’s business “to delve into those allegations.” However, Tehran described Heinonen’s previous trip as “constructive.”
“Heinonen has traveled to Tehran to continue previous talks about the trend of cooperation between Iran and the agency,” IRNA said.
The IAEA said in a report in May that alleged Iranian research into nuclear warheads was a “serious concern.” The next IAEA report on Iran is due in the middle of next month.
The West accuses Iran of trying to obtain nuclear arms under cover of a civilian program. Iran, the world’s fourth largest oil producer, says it needs nuclear technology to generate electricity.
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