TEHRAN (AP) – Iran launched a satellite into space on Saturday with a rocket built by the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, state-run media reported.
Iran described the launch as the second such launch to put a satellite into orbit with the rocket. Independent scientists later confirmed the launch and that the satellite reached orbit.
Footage later released by Iranian media showed the rocket blast off from a mobile launcher.
An Associated Press analysis of the video and other imagery later released suggested the launch happened at the Guard’s launch pad on the outskirts of the city of Shahroud, some 350 kilometres east of the capital, Tehran.
Iran identified the satellite-carrying rocket as the Qaem-100, which the Guard used in January for another successful launch. Qaem means “upright” in Iran’s Farsi language.
A state-owned subsidiary of Iran’s Defense Ministry and experts at the Aerospace Research Institute built the satellite with others to “test hardware and software systems for orbital manoeuvre technology validation”, state media said, without elaborating.
