Iranian space nukes satellites

The United States has voiced "grave concern" after Iran launched its first domestically built satellite. Robert Wood, a US state department spokesman, said that Tuesday's satellite launch by Tehran could "possibly lead to the development of ballistic missiles". The satellite, named Omid (Hope), was launched into orbit by rocket and is the first in a series that Iran plans to put into space by the end of next year. Iran is under two rounds of UN sanctions due to its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, which the US and other Western nations fear could lead to the production of nuclear weapons. Iran said the satellite had already completed its first mission to transmit a message from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who spoke at the launching ceremony. “With God’s help and the desire for justice and peace,” he said, “the official presence of the Islamic republic was registered in space.”. In using its own rocket to launch the satellite, Iran joined eight other nations that have used their own technologies to send objects into orbit (Russia, the United States, France, Japan, China, Britain, India and Israel). Amateur observers have already spotted the bright craft in the night sky. Aerospace experts said Iran’s growing fleet of rockets had drawn most heavily on aid from North Korea. Over the years, Tehran’s efforts to build a fleet of large rockets, and to buy and make satellites, have received technical help from Russia, China, India, Italy and North Korea. In Israel, Yiftah Shapir, an expert on ballistic missiles and space technology at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, played down the launching as an event that was expected and had little military significance. The Iranians “already have missiles that can reach Israel,” he said. So for at least one country, he added, this was “nothing new.” The experts said the step represented no immediate military threat and no reason to rush the deployment of antimissile arms in Europe, which the Bush administration sought to counter the threat of Iranian missiles. Weapons experts agreed that the act was mainly a symbolic accomplishment because the satellite was very small. Launching a heavy warhead intercontinental distances would require a far more powerful missile.

Iran’s action had more to do with sending a message to Washington and asserting influence as a regional power than with achieving a new military capability. It’s a way for the Iranian people to stand proud, but to do it in a way that is still within a civilian program.