Payam / Biyam

The country had plans to send two satellites, Payam, meaning "message," and Doosti, meaning "peace” into orbit. Iran normally shows off its achievements in space in February, when the country marks the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Payam (meaning ‘message’ in Persian) was designed and developed by experts of Amirkabir University of Technology to carry out imagery and telecommunication missions. It was aimed to take surveying images at high resolutions. Payam was intended to be used for imaging and communications purposes and was mounted with four cameras, according to a report on the telecommunications ministry’s website. Payam, a 90kg non-military satellite, was planned to be sent into a 500km orbit with an inclination of 55 degree using domestically-made Safir satellite-carrier rocket. Manufactured by Amirkabir University of Technology, the image resolution of the Payam satellite was said to be 45 meters and it could stay in orbit for three years.

In 2016 the developers of the native satellite at Amir Kabir University announced that the "message" had been delivered to the clean room after being inaugurated by the president during the Fajr decade. The project's satellite project director at that time point, referring to the entirely civilian mission of the satellite, from its international registration at the ATU frequency, and the confirmation of the World Telecommunication Union confirmed for this important achievement, said the message satellite is set to be at a height of 500 kilometers above ground level. The mission is to actually monitor land-based images, store and send information and carry radiated shipments.

Mustafa Safavi said that all the frequencies of the orbits should be recorded in the International Telecommunication Union, said: "Fortunately, Amir Kabir's "Message" satellite has undergone these steps. Although the mission of the satellite message was explicitly and formally civilized, yet the world's nations did not seem to have the potential to throw Iranian satellites into space in terms of military-related technology, and in practice, launch operations were subject to sanctions and delays.

The design of this satellite had been completed since 1384 and has now been completed and reached the stage to successfully pass all tests and tests of the Iranian Space Research Institute. The creation of an atmosphere of sanctions for the country and the reluctance of other countries to launch Iranian space satellites led the country to take another step forward in one of the key areas of space technology and to succeed in building a domestic launcher and meeting the needs of the country. The Native Satellite Engineering Model was sent to the State Space Agency, which, after identifying the other necessary approvals, finally completed its assembly and construction.

Now that the conditions for the launch of this satellite are provided and all ground tests successfully passed, it should be noted that according to global standards, usually every satellite after being placed in the circuit is first measured by the command center and guided by it on the ground. The test is measured to last for its performance, so as soon as the message is placed in its orbit, the mission of the satellite begins immediately after its last successful experiment.

The "message" satellite follows the three main missions as follows:

1. Three-dimensional (green-red and infrared) and pancromatic imaging from Iran (close to real-time and save-send)
2. Save and send messages (S & F)
3. Measurement of spatial radiation

The ground stations intended for Amir Kabir's "message" satellite will be located at the site of Mahdasht and Qeshm's ground station, and the two stations will have the capability of simultaneous receiving of the image and more telemetric data from the satellite. Also based on information from the Iranian Space Agency, the Project Control Center will be based in the center of Mahdasht.

For the construction of this satellite, the equipment and internal specialist forces were used and more than 80 percent of the equipment used in the satellite was designed and built inside the country; even in the satellite of many electronic boards, antennas and driver (drivers) of the satellite by students inside the country It was built and reliant not on the outside.

Four cameras are installed on this satellite that performs ground-based shooting; three-dimensional satellite imaging is one of its other uses. Three of these cameras are in different circuits and a high-resolution panchromatic camera with a resolution of 40 meters. According to this resolution, many applications for monitoring the growth of agricultural crops, botanical studies, forestry, etc. can be obtained from satellite images of the surface ghe land being studied.

The project's satellite project manager said that when the initial proposal of the satellite was launched with a foreign launcher, the technical specifications of the altitude from the ground were 631 kilometers and the inclination angle was 98 degrees, but after non-technical reasons, foreign launchers did not cooperate to launch the satellite. Changes were made to the satellite's specifications.

On 14 January 2019, Iranian President Hassan Rowhani announced that his country would launch two satellites into space in the coming days with two satellite rockets, despite warnings from Washington, which accuses Tehran of developing nuclear missiles under the cover of a space program. Rohani said the Biyam satellite would orbit 600 kilometers from the Earth's surface, adding that it would be the first long-range satellite launched by Iran and would cross Iran six times a day.

Tehran attempted to launch a domestically-produced Payam satellite, however, it failed to reach orbit, Iranian state TV announced 15 January 2019, citing Minister of Telecommunications Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi. According to him, the satellite's carrier rocket successfully passed the first and second stage of the launch, but could not reach the "necessary speed" in the third stage. "Payam satellite was successfully launched this morning with the Basir satellite carrier. But the satellite unfortunately failed to be placed in the orbit in the last phase," said Jahromi. Named after a bird in Iranian mythology, the Simorgh rocket is capable of propelling a satellite weighing 250 kilograms to an altitude of 500 km above earth.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the supposedly "innocent satellite" was actually "the first stage of an intercontinental missile" Iran is developing in violation of international agreements. The launch was previously criticised by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, while Tehran has stressed it does not violate UN Security Council Resolution 2231 pertaining to the country's nuclear programme. In January, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that Iran would face economic and diplomatic consequences if it carried out three scheduled space launches in the coming months.

For his part, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif noted that Iran's rocket launches are not in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231. Zarif said that pursuing Iran's aerospace programme is not against international law. "The satellite is part of a civil project with purely scientific aims, foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi told the semi-official ISNA news agency. "Iran will wait for no country's permission to conduct such scientific projects."

Chancellor of Amirkabir University Ahmad Motamedi said Payam satellite plummeted into the Indian Ocean, after it failed to reach orbit at the final stage of the launch. Referring to the latest status of Payam satellite, launched successfully yesterday with the Simorgh satellite carrier, but unfortunately failed to be placed into the orbit, Motamedi described as "favorable" the technical performance of the satellite, underlining that "Payam was sending out signals from the space for about 6 minutes, indicating that the satellite works fine." Pointing to the current location of the satellite, he said "according to GPS data active until the last minute, Payam fell into Indian Ocian, after failure to be located into the orbit."

Regarding the reasons behind the failure to put Payam satellite into orbit at 500 kilometers altitude, Chancellor of Amirkabir University said "the launcher had not correctly calculated the initial speed of the satellite." He also pointed to fuel-related issues as another reason for the failure in putting the satellite into the orbit. Motamedi added that the satellite did not have any problem regarding its launch direction and flight. "Given the order by Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi to design and build the next satellite, named 'Payam 2', our team of scientists will prepare it for launch in less than a year, thanks to the technical knowledge we have now acquired," he stressed.

“I want to make you happy with good news, however, life is not what we expect most of time … but we should not back out! This is when we manifest our differences with other nations in high spirit and bravery, we prove others that ‘Dousti’ will be successful, Inshallah,” stated Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, the information and communication technology (ICT) minister.