Space

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

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.