Iran’s Up-coming first Satellite Launch Attempt
&
“Kavoshgar” Sounding Rocket & the First Satellite Launch Vehicle “Safire”
© C. P. Vick 2008 All Rights Reserved
March 25, - April 12, 2008
Disclaimer
The opinions and evaluations stated here in are only the authors and cannot be construed to reflect those of any Government agency, company, institute or association. It is based on public information, circumstantial evidence, informed speculation, declassified U.S. intelligence community documents, official Iranian and North Korean government documents and histories, oral histories, interviews and reverse engineering analysis. As with all data regarding the Iranian and North Korean strategic space and ballistic missile programs, this analysis is subject to revision--and represents a work in progress
Iran’s Up-coming first Satellite Launch Attempt
Iran plans to launch two more research and development “Safir” boosters into space to finish its development before attempting to launch the Omid [Hope] scientific satellite in the summer of 2008 according to its president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The defense minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said in a speech on February 4, 2008 that the Omid [Hope] satellite would be launched during the next Khordad-87 between May 21 and June 22, 2008 or during the following Khordad in the summer of 2008 which started March 20, 2008 for the Iranian Islamic calendar. He further iterated that the plans were a part of the guide lines of the supreme leader Ali Khamene'i, policies and objectives of the ninth government, and the 20-year economic outlook plan.
Omid [Hope] Satellite
C ompleting the ten year research and development of the Omid [Hope] satellite project with its successful orbiting in 2008 is mandated to be completed before March 20, 2009 . It is to be placed in a high inclination orbit (perhaps 62-64 degrees) with a 650 kilometer circular obit altitude passing over Iran six times daily. The box shaped satellite has many external antennas’ on its outer surfaces that are covered with a thermal insulation blanket. There are no obvious solar arrays on the outer shell indicating battery powered a short life satellite. It contains many black box instruments giving it a mass in the 40-100 kilogram range as expected.
“Kavoshgar” (Explorer)Vertical Probe Sounding RocketPerformance,
When Iran launched the Kavoshgar sounding rocket vertical probe a derivation of the Shahab-3C/Ghadr MRBM was said to have achieved an altitude of 200 kilometers with its scientific probe. The vehicle consisted of three parts with the rocket detaching between 90 and 100 seconds of flight returning to earth via ballistic trajectory. Whether the booster stage was recovered via parachute is questionable. The aero shell re-entry vehicle was also separated achieving 200 -250 kilometers in altitude and returned to earth via ballistic trajectory after 300 seconds in flight. The encapsulated probe continued to ascent to 200-250 kilometers orbital altitude but whether it separated from the aero shell re-entry vehicle is questionable and unlikely until parachute deployment at a lower altitude if at all. That scientific ballistic sounding rocket probe was designed to gather meteorological data returned information on the atmosphere, winds, temperature and pressure as well as the electromagnetic waves on its flight path and simultaneously made contact with the ground track station during its flight and returned to earth via ballistic trajectory with recovery by a parachute with in 300 seconds to 360 seconds. The launch of the Kavoshgar vertical probe was said to be a test flight leading up to the hoped for successful “Safir” flight with the future scientific research satellite, Omid (Hope), launch to orbit. This flight certainly constituted another successful flight test of the Ghadr ballistic missile indicating its duel purpose intent. Kavoshgar was not launched from the location of the new Safir space booster launch site but else where from this vast ballistic missile and space booster test infrastructure and artillery range. That facility is believed to be west of the space launch site and the support industrial zone.
Safire (Emissary) & Kavoshgar (Explorer)
The “Safir" (Emissary) IRILV [Islamic Republic of Iran Launch Vehicle] three stage satellite launch vehicle first stage is expected to impact about 300-350 km or so down range from the launch site within Iran existing missile test range. The first stage consist of a lengthened up-rated Shahab-3C/Ghadr toped with a same diameter second stage both of which use the same common highly toxic storable propellants TM-185/AK-27I.
The two thrust chamber step throttled second stage is believed derived from the one altitude thrust chamber Scud-ER propulsion system design used by the North Koran Taepo-dong-1 launch vehicle. This short stocky Safir second stage uses a common bulkhead between the propellant tanks along with an open cycle single turbo pump to drive the propellants to the two main altitude thrust chambers and multiple attitude control thrusters that feature’s a centerline turbine exhaust thrust chamber. The second stage may in fact do the final spin up for the third stage but this remains uncertain. It will impact perhaps some 1,500-2,000 km down range from the launch site over the Arabian Sea with orbital insertion to take place over the Indian Ocean. The spin up orbital insertion third stage is expected to be an identifiable Chinese design solid motor produced by Iran. The third stage solid motor is housed within the payload encapsulation shroud on top of the second stage. From what the Iranian’s have displayed it would appear that several launch vehicle and stage details are all fundamentally missing from the design that would impact the development of the launch vehicle if not revised if they have not already done so .
Other Unidentified Flight Test?
There is some inconclusive open source evidence that would suggest that the February 25, 2007 sounding rocket launch was a failure or that the first flight test of the Kavoshgar (Explorer) sounding rocket or “Safir” booster was a catastrophic in flight altitude failure. That is presumed why the Iranian’s announcement was made for two more flight tests before attempting to launch the satellite to prove the boosters reliability. They certainly did not show that flight test video but only altitude stuff and further some of the sounding rocket stuff was last years launch not this year’s launch. All of this imagery was very carefully orchestrated by Iran and totally controlled further muddying the full public understanding of what has actually taken place. Yes Iran has small solid propellant sounding weather rockets but that is not what they were attempting to demonstrate recently.
Assessing the Safir Technology
The Safire space booster appears to be little more than a compacted redesigned better performance version of the North Korean Teap’o-dong-1 design. Its probable payload capacity of less than 50 - 100 kg strongly indication it is a proof of principal pathfinder development launch vehicle that will give Iran two and three stage experience with liquid propellant launch vehicle technology. Iran has already demonstrated three stage operations with the solid propellant Ghadr-110/Ashura program 2,000km range designed now being deployed to replace the liquid propellant Shahab-3B, 3C/Ghadr already deployed. The Shahab-3B, 3C/Ghadr-1 design has a 2,000 km range performance. A variation on the Shahab-3C/Ghadr-1 called the Kavoshgar-1 was the sounding rocket successfully launched February 4 th, 2008. All of these systems owe their heritage to the Scud based technologies and the follow on No-dong-A and Taep’o-dong-1 launch vehicles.
What Is It with These Names Shahab-3 A, B, C, Ghadr, Ghadr-110, Ashura, Kavoshgar?
The Shahab-3, 3A are variants on the basic No-dong-A design while the Shahab-3B is a lengthened up-rated improvement on the Shahab-3A. The Ghadr-110 is the Ashura solid propellant replacement for the liquid propellant Shahab-3A, 3B & 3C series. The Ghadr-110 is the original name applied to the Iranian government renamed Ashura. The Kavoshgar is the Iranian Shahab-3C Ghadr missile system a lengthened up-rated Shahab-3B used as a sounding rocket vertical probe. All of this would suggest that the Iranians are playing “name games deception” because two systems they are not showing the really important Ghadr-101/110now recently displayed in flight and in background video and No-dong-B missiles are the critical strategic systems. Basically the Shahab-3B had been displayed in parade some three times before a variant on it the “Ghadr” Shahab-3C was displayed in parade suggest that the Iranians were both playing games to make news and play the psychological warfare game of “Names games deception”. One could also wonder about the political agenda games from which one can only guess. The missile displayed are essentially variants of the Shahab-3B the same missile flight tested at least two or three times and also paraded with six missiles of the identical design in at least three national parades in all cases labeled Shahab-3. It is in fact the Shahab-3B, with its 1,800-2,000 km range missile and not the actual 2,000 km range Ghadr-101/110 series/“Ashura” solid propellant equivalent to the Shahab-3A, Shahab-3B & Shahab-3C performance missile.
We have yet to see the storable propellant No-dong-B/Mirim IRBM known to have been received by Iran in December 2005 and soon afterwards flight tested, deployed by Iran that has a demonstrated range of 2,000 miles or 3,218 kilometers (3,000 kilometers) that is capable of flying (2,485 miles) or 4,000 kilometers. In spite of the released US, NIE on Iran's nuclear intent it is reasonably clear that Iran continues to develop strategic short, medium and intermediate ballistic missile delivery systems that could be used to carry future nuclear weapons if they choose to finalize their development as Iran continue to produce highly enriched nuclear materials so critical to a potential nuclear weapons program. Countries do not produce missiles to travel over thousands of kilometers to deliver mere “Fire Cracker” conventional high energy explosive warhead weapons unless they are intended to carry primarily nuclear, or chemical, biological weapons of mass destruction. The advances in the missile launch vehicle and re-entry vehicle program do mirror the advances in the parallel nuclear weapons program of the larger total weapons program. Generally speaking no country makes the investment up to the threshold of actually having nuclear weapons without completing the process.
Credits, References:
1. Originally published by Fars News Agency website, Tehran , in Persian 0845 4 Feb 08. (c) 2008 BBC Monitoring Newsfile. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved. Story from REDORBIT NEWS:
http://www.redorbit.com/news/display/?id=1240731
Published: 2008/02/04 09:00:44 CST
© RedOrbit 2005, Iran to Launch Omid Satellite in June 08, to Build Remote-Sensing Satellite, Text of report by Iranian conservative, privately = owned Fars News Agency website, Tehran February 4, 2008
2. http://hometown.aol.de/SLVehicles2/Dong%20Feng/DF.htm
The striking similarity of any Chinese, Pakistani and Iranian solid fuel rockets,
Norbert Brügge, Germany
3. http://hometown.aol.de/SLVehicles2/Nodong/Nodong.htm
The North-Korean Nodong missile family, Norbert Brügge, Germany
4. http://hometown.aol.de/SLVehicles2/Safir-IRILV/Safir.htm
Iran 's first space launch vehicle Safir IRILV, Norbert Brügge, Germany
5. http://youtube.com/watch?v=S3mSNxhILo0&feature=related ,
Various Iranian video’s on the missile and space industry,
Iran Launches Space Programme, Fires Research Rocket video
Iran Launched a Rocket to Send First Satellite video
Iran Space Center video (Persian)
Iran Test Launches Kavoshgar-1 Space Rocket video
6. http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=86111505392/4.08, News – English, News number:8611150539, 2008-02-04 – 15:36 , Iran Tests Satellite Rocket Launcher, Tehran (FNA) Semnan province.
7. http://en.rian.ru/world/20080204/98302047.html, Iran tests sounding rocket. Unveils first homemade satellite, 04/02/2008 .
8. http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=4163§ionid=351020101 , Iran ’s Kavoshgar I lifts off for space 2/4/2008
9. http://www.isna.ir/Main?NewsView.aspx?ID=News-1080968&Lang=E, Iran launches first space center 2/4/2008
10. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22995937/ Iran unveils space center, launches rocket by Ali Akbar Dareini Associated Press Tehran, Iran, 2/4/2008
11. http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/library/news/2008/space-080211-irna01.htm2 more rockets to be launched – Ahmadinejad, IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency, Tehran, Iran, Feb. 11, 2008
12. http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Ahmadinejad_Says_Iran_Will_Launch_Two More_... , Ahmadinejad Says Iran Will Launch Two More Satellites, Tehran , Iran (AFP) 2/11/2008
13. http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Iran_says_its_space_probe_sending_data_to_to_Earth_999... , Iran says its space probe sending data to earth, Tehran , Iran (AFP) 2/17/2008
14. John Locker correspondence February 2008
15. Nicholas Badenhorst – correspondence February. March 2008
16. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3724048.ece, Spy photos reveal ‘secret launch site’ for Iran’s long-range missiles
US GOVERNMENT FINALLY ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THE NEW
NORTH KOREAN & IRANIAN MISSILES
05-17-07
By Charles P. Vick © All Rights Reserved 2007
Senior Analyst, Globalsecurity.org
Finally on January 29, 2007 the US government acknowledged for the first time the existence of several new Iranian and North Korean missiles under development through a speech by the deputy director of the Missile Defense Agency of the Pentagon Army Brig. General Patrick O’Reilly before the George C. Marshall Institute. In that speech he described the Iranian multi stage Ghadr-101 with a 750-800-1000 km range and the two stage Ghadr-110 solid propellant missile with a range of (1,324 miles) 1,995.16 or close to 2,000 kilometers. It has been known that the Iranians are working on the Ghadr-101 as well as the Ghadr-110 solid propellant missiles. The Ghadr-101, 110 solid motor development was completed in 2005. He also described the two stage Taep’o-dong-2C/3 as having a range of (6,200 Miles) 9,975.8 kilometers and the three stage version with a range of (9,300 miles) 14,963.7 kilometers with a 200-250 kg warhead. He went further in his slides presentation to show that the liquid propellant No-dong-B/Mirim has a demonstrated range of 2,000 miles or 3,218 kilometers (3,000 kilometers) when it is capable of flying (2,485 miles) or 4,000 kilometers. (24) The No-dong-B was described as “a qualitative improvement in the performance” from earlier North Korean missile systems. The Iranian Ghadr-101, 110, 110A will in fact also provides Iran with an ASAT capability besides its operational MRBM and IRBM capability.
24. http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20070130-122437-6559r.htm Gertz, Bill, How the “axis” seeks the killer missile, The Washington Times, January 30, 2007 , p. ?
25. http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20070130-122437-6559r.htmGertz, Bill, How the “axis” seeks the killer missile, The Washington Times, January 30, 2007
