Iran has announced the “successful” launch of a Simorgh rocket from the Khomeini Space Center, carrying three payloads, according to a report by the semi-official Tasnim News Agency.
The same space center “successfully launched” the Simorgh carrier in 2017 with the mission of putting satellites into orbit, Tasnim reported.
“Seyed Ahmad Hosseini, a Defense Ministry spokesman, said on Thursday that in this launch, the performances of the space center and the satellite carrier were properly done and the research objectives were achieved,” the news outlet reported.
In what he called a “research space mission: Hosseini said that for the first time “three research cargos were simultaneously sent to 470 kilometers above the earth with a speed of 7,350 km/s.”
But although Iran touted the launch as a success, it might not be, according to US astronomer Jonathan McDowell, a scientist at the Center for Astrophysics (but not speaking for, he notes), who said the numbers indicate a different outcome.
McDowell pointed out in a series of tweets Thursday that although Iran reported the rocket reaching 7350 m/s at an altitude of 470 kilometers, that does not necessarily mean it actually reached orbit.
If the 7,350m/s is an inertial velocity, I reconstruct the likely trajectory as impacting south of Australia about 28 min after launch (whenever that was) pic.twitter.com/BWLR7lMjyi
— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589)
“If an inertial velocity that corresponds to a -450 x 470 km orbit,” McDowell noted, it means it fell short of reaching orbit. “If the 7,350m/s is an inertial velocity, I reconstruct the likely trajectory as impacting south of Australia about 28 min after launch (whenever that was),” he wrote.
“If it’s an Earth-relatlive (sic) velocity, however, 7350 m/s would correspond to successfully reaching a 470 x 520 km orbit. The phrasing of the Iranian report . . . doesn’t suggest orbit was reached, and there are no TLEs from SpaceForce so far,” he wrote.
However, he added, critical information is still missing, such as the actual launch date and time, and the orbital inclination “probably 55 deg as previously used by Iran,” he added.