Shahryar Pasandideh
After a four-year pause, Iran resumed its satellite program earlier this year, although two attempted launches in January and February both failed, followed by a third failed launch in late August. Together, they are a major setback for a space program that has long been hampered by the strains of international sanctions, including the ones these tests provoke, like the latest U.S. sanctions on Iran’s space agencies imposed this week. Even though a failed test is an opportunity for Iranian engineers to troubleshoot their rocket designs, the series of failures this year demonstrate the challenges that Iran must overcome before it can realize its civilian and military ambitions in space.
In 2009, Iran successfully placed into orbit its first satellite on an indigenous satellite launch vehicle, or SLV, making it the ninth country in the world to do so. Despite the fact that the crude Omid satellite weighed just 27 kilograms—barely 60 pounds—the launch marked the first step of an ambitious space program that aimed to put into orbit larger satellites of greater civilian and military use. In the decade since then, Iran has placed three additional satellites into orbit, all small experimental designs like the Omid, demonstrating the country’s nascent space capabilities. Yet its ambitions are held back by the rocket design it relies on.
The Safir SLV, used to launch the Omid and other Iranian satellites, is derived from the liquid-fueled Shahab-3 ballistic missile, which constitutes the bulk of Iran’s long-range, conventionally armed missile arsenal. The Safir’s design is an evolutionary dead-end with little room for payload growth, making it incapable of delivering satellites much larger or heavier than the Omid into low Earth orbit, let alone beyond. In other words, the Safir SLV sets hard limits on what Iran’s space program can really achieve.
To overcome the limitations of the Safir, Iran has spent over a decade working on a larger rocket, called the Simorgh. First successfully tested in 2016, the Simorgh is built around the propulsion system of the Shahab-3 ballistic missile, with four engines clustered together to provide a considerably higher payload capacity and higher orbit than the Safir. Although the underlying technology is not groundbreaking, the Simorgh offers the ability to place into orbit satellites with meaningful civilian and military capabilities.
Yet the Simorgh program has been beset with technical challenges, compounded by the stifling constraints of international sanctions placed on the Iranian space program. In July 2017, Iran unsuccessfully tested a Simorgh SLV without a payload. In January of this year, it made its third and most recent test, this time with a satellite. Although the Simorgh SLV took off successfully, the mission failed as the satellite didn’t reach orbit. So, 10 years after placing the Omid satellite into orbit, Iran is still reliant on a less advanced rocket, the Safir SLV, for its nascent space program. As if the repeated failures of the Simorgh were not bad enough, the failure late last month of another Safir launch leaves Iran without a reliable way of placing satellites of any size into orbit.
The three failed satellite launches this year are a substantial setback for Iran’s ambitions in space.For now, the future of Iran’s space program hinges on two rockets: the successful development of the Simorgh and the refinement of the Safir, to restore its reliability. The three launch failures of 2019 suggest that there is more work to do before either rocket can serve as the workhorse of an ambitious space program. While these failures could be fixed with enough time and effort, the problem for Iran is that a reliable SLV entails an extensive testing program, one requiring perhaps a half dozen or so launches. But the testing of any rocket by Iran, even if it is not a ballistic missile and is in fact intended for civilian purposes, attracts unwelcome diplomatic attention at a time when the United States is tightening pressure on Tehran. What is seen as good behavior by Iran is also key to mitigating the effects of the unilateral American withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. In many respects, Tehran’s problem is managing optics and public diplomacy. But the new sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department on Iran’s civilian space agency and two research organizations this week are further proof of the scale of the challenge Tehran faces on the diplomatic front.
Although many observers often draw a direct connection between Iran’s space program and its ballistic missile capabilities—because a functional rocket can, in principle, offer comparable range to an intercontinental ballistic missile when repurposed—all things considered, SLV designs are not well suited for conversion into ballistic missiles. Satellite launch vehicles are generally too large, bulky, fragile and take too long to fuel to be practical for the delivery of nuclear weapons, particularly if intended for use against nuclear-armed countries such as the United States and Israel. Yet at the same time, the satellites that these rockets place into orbit would provide Iran with important military capabilities that it currently lacks.
Although officially part of a civilian space program, Iran’s development of its own satellite design and manufacturing capacity also has a military dimension. Iran is not unique in this respect as satellites inherently offer dual-use capabilities. With communications satellites, for example, the Iranian Red Crescent and Iranian companies can more readily transfer data from remote locations in the country. Earth observation satellites can be used by Iranian scientists for environmental research and assist Iranian farmers in agricultural planning. At the same time, these satellites can help Iran operate its unmanned drones at greater distances and can also help Iran keep an eye on military facilities in the Middle East in preparation for potential military strikes with its increasingly accurate missiles.
None of this is to say that the entire civilian dimension of Iran’s space ambitions is a ruse. Rather, much of the country’s space ambitions, including the goal of putting humans in orbit, should be understood instead as part of a broader nationalistic venture. Iran takes pride in self-reliance and displays of Iranian technological capabilities, even if many of the end products are dual-use and can ultimately help address deficiencies in its military capabilities. With few international vendors available and inclined to sell Iran satellites—whether civilian or military—under the current sanctions regime, the country has strong reasons to try to develop its own capability, even if the process is long and difficult.
The three failed satellite launches this year are a substantial setback for Iran’s ambitions in space, even if such tests, including failures, are part of the process of developing a successful space program. If provided with time and resources—and the approval of Iran’s leaders to carry out more tests in the face of additional sanctions and diplomatic pressure—Iranian engineers may successfully prove their rocket designs. They might even use the accumulated experience to develop a more advanced rocket capable of placing even larger satellites into orbit.
Until then, though, the country’s space program is likely to remain in limbo. Diplomatic tensions and the strain of sanctions mean that a decade on from its first successful placement of a satellite into orbit, Iran’s space ambitions remain firmly on the ground.
Shahryar Pasandideh is a doctoral student in the Department of Political Science at the George Washington University. His research focuses on assessments of military power, the development and diffusion of military technologies, military operations and effectiveness, and regional security issues in the Persian Gulf region and the Indo-Pacific.
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