Iran said on Wednesday it was planning two tests of its new solid-fuel rocket after satellite imagery showed preparations for a desert launch site previously used in the program, although tensions remain high for its rapidly evolving nuclear program. The Islamic Republic will launch its Zuljanah satellite rocket two more times after a previous launch, the state-run IRNA news agency quoted Defense Ministry spokesman Ahmad Hosseini as saying. He did not specify the timing of the tests, nor did he say when the previous launch took place. Each of Zuljanah’s three stages will be evaluated during the tests, Hosseini said. Satellite imagery taken by Maxar Technologies on Tuesday showed preparations at a launch site in the Iranian port of Imam Khomeini in Iran’s Semnan province, where frequent recent failed attempts to launch a satellite. A set of images showed a rocket on a conveyor, preparing to be lifted and mounted on a launch tower. A later photo on Tuesday afternoon showed the rocket apparently in the tower. Although it is not clear when the launch will take place, the launch of a rocket usually means that the launch is imminent. NASA firefighting satellites, which detect flashes of light from space, did not immediately see any activity over the site late Tuesday night through Wednesday. Asked about the preparations, State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington that the United States was urging Iran to escalate the situation. “Iran has consistently chosen to escalate tensions. It is Iran that has consistently chosen to take provocative action,” Price said. A Pentagon staffer who assisted in compiling the report, Rob Lodewick, said: “The United States will continue to monitor Iran’s pursuit of sustainable space launch technology and how it relates to developments in its overall ballistic missile program.” “Iranian aggression, including the proven threat from its various missile programs, continues to be a major concern for our forces in the region,” Lodewick said. Over the past decade, Iran has launched several short-lived satellites into orbit, and in 2013 launched a monkey into space. However, the program has seen recent problems. There have been five failed launches in a row for Simorgh, a type of satellite-carrying rocket. A fire at the Imam Khomeini Space Port in February 2019 also killed three researchers, authorities said at the time. The launch pad used in Tuesday’s preparations remains marked by an explosion in August 2019 that even caught the attention of then-President Donald Trump. He later posted on Twitter what appeared to be a secret tracking image of the launch failure. Satellite imagery from February suggests a failed launch of Zuljanah earlier this year, although Iran has not acknowledged it. The successive failures raised suspicions of foreign interference in Iran’s program, something that Trump himself hinted when he wrote on Twitter that the United States “did not participate in the catastrophic accident.” However, no evidence has been provided that shows a bad game in any of the failures and space launches remain challenging even for the most successful programs in the world. Meanwhile, Iran’s Paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps in April 2020 unveiled its own secret space program, successfully launching a satellite into orbit. The Guard launched another satellite this March at another location in Semnan Province, just east of the Iranian capital, Tehran. John Krzyzaniak, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, predicted on Tuesday that Iran would test another Zuljanah. Krzyzaniak suggested earlier this week that a launch was imminent based on site activity. The name of the rocket, Zuljanah, comes from the horse of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Iranian state television broadcast footage of a successful Zuljanah launch in February 2021. Launch preparations are also coming as the Guard reportedly saw one of its soldiers “testify” in Semnan province under unclear circumstances over the weekend. Iran’s Defense Ministry’s Ministry of Defense and Intelligence, however, later claimed the man was working for it. Zuljanah was designed by this ministry. The United States has said Iran’s satellite launches violate a UN Security Council resolution calling on Tehran not to take any action on ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The US intelligence community’s 2022 threat assessment assessment, released in March, claims that such a satellite launch vehicle “shortens the schedule” of an intercontinental ballistic missile for Iran by using “similar technologies”. Iran, which has long said it has no nuclear weapons, has said in the past that its satellite launches and missile tests have no military component. The US intelligence service and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran abandoned an organized military nuclear program in 2003. However, possible Iranian preparations for the launch come as tensions have risen in recent days over Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran now says it will remove 27 IAEA surveillance cameras from its nuclear facilities, as it now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons quality levels. Both Iran and the United States insist they are willing to return to Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which has seen the Islamic Republic drastically reduce its enrichment in exchange for lifting economic sanctions. Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the agreement in 2018, launching a series of attacks and controversies that begin in 2019 and continue today in the government of President Joe Biden. Talks in Vienna on reviving the agreement have been “paused” since March. Building a nuclear bomb would take even more time than Iran if it followed a weapon, analysts say, although they warn that developments in Tehran make the program more dangerous. Israel has threatened in the past to strike a preemptive strike to stop Iran – and is already suspected of a series of recent assassinations of Iranian officials. —— Associated Press author Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
