The Iranian Revolutionary Guard announced yesterday that it had launched the country's first military satellite, the Noor-1. From a technical point of view, this orbiting is a great first for Iran, in more ways than one. But the timing of this military launch also contributes to the game of declaratory strategy between Tehran and Washington, and thus contributes to increasing tensions between the two countries.
After promising beginnings, with three successive successful launches between 2009 and 2012, the Iranian space program has accumulated failures. The last successful launch thus dates back to 2015, with the launch of the small experimental satellite Fajr by a Safir-1B+ rocket that took off from the Semnan space base. Since then, all launches have ended in failure, with the loss of a Safir rocket in February 2019, but also the four new generation Simorgh rockets. The last launch of a Simorgh, on February 20, failed to place Zafar-1 satellite in orbit due to too low speed.
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