Iran Offers to Launch Satellites
By NAZILA FATHI and THOM SHANKER
Published: August 18, 2008
TEHRAN — A day after Iran declared that it had test-fired a new rocket capable of launching a satellite, the country said Monday that it was prepared to help other Muslim countries send up satellites. But by then, Pentagon and military officials in Washington were concluding that the Iranian missile launching had been a failure.
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Iran Reports Test of Craft Able to Carry a Satellite (August 18, 2008) The officials, speaking on ground rules of anonymity to discuss intelligence reports, said that the first stage of the missile performed successfully, but that the second stage failed. It flew off wildly, they said, destroying the top of the missile and the nose cone.
Despite the mission’s overall failure, the launching was expected to add to Iran’s knowledge about how to improve its missile skills, and thus was still viewed as a worrisome development, according to the American officials.
A rocket capable of carrying a satellite to space could also deliver nuclear warheads, and the Iranian announcement added to concerns over whether Iran’s nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes, as Iran maintains.
Iran has made several recent claims of test-firing missiles that Western military analysts have said were inflated. Last month, Iran said it had launched a number of missiles in war-game maneuvers, including at least one that the government in Tehran described as having the range to reach Israel. Western military analysts said that the war games featured more bluff than displays of real power and that the description of the largest missile was misleading.
On Sunday, Iranian television showed images of the nighttime rocket launching, and said a satellite had been sent into orbit. Iranian officials later said that only the rocket had been fired.
On Monday, Reza Taghipour, head of Iran’s space agency, told state television: “I am announcing now that Iran is ready to launch satellites of friendly Islamic countries into space.”
Meanwhile, the minister of defense, Mostafa Mohammad Najar, dismissed the concerns of Western nations and said they wanted to prevent Iran from making scientific progress, the Fars news agency reported. He said Iran “would soon place its national satellite” into orbit, but he did not say when.
The United Nations nuclear watchdog group, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is expected to give its report on Iran’s nuclear program in September. On Monday, a top I.A.E.A. official, Olli Heinonen, made his second visit this month for discussions with Iranian nuclear authorities, ISNA news agency reported. Iran called the first visit positive.
Nazila Fathi reported from Tehran, and Thom Shanker from Washington.
