Iran has launched a rocket carrying three satellites, Iranian state television reported on December 30.
Defense Ministry spokesman Ahmad Hosseini said the rocket was a “Simorgh” (Phoenix) rocket and that the payload reached an altitude of 470 kilometers.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency quoted Hosseini as saying the launch was a “space research mission.”
He said the “performance of the space center and the performance of the satellite carrier were satisfactory.”
State television showed footage of the rocket launching from the Imam Khomeini Spaceport near the northern city of Semnan.
Independent satellite images of Iran taken earlier this month seemed to show that a launch was imminent, AP reported.
The reported launch comes amid difficult negotiations in Vienna between Tehran and world powers over a landmark 2015 deal aimed at restricting Iran’s nuclear program. That deal has been under threat since the United States withdrew from it and reimposed sanctions against Iran in 2018.
On December 28, European delegates to the Vienna talks issued a joint statement saying, “we are clear that we are nearing the point where Iran’s escalation of its nuclear program will have completely hollowed out” the 2015 agreement.
One reason the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump gave for withdrawing from the agreement was concern that it did not restrict Iran’s strategic missile program.
The United States has said Iran’s satellite launches defy a UN Security Council resolution urging Iran to avoid activity that could lead to the development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.
Iran has said that it is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons and that its rocket tests do not have military objectives.
Iran’s civilian space program has been bedeviled by launch failures. A parallel program under the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) successfully launched a satellite in 2020.
