{"id":329994,"date":"2026-03-09T15:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T15:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/329994\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T15:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T15:03:11","slug":"idf-hits-irgc-aerospace-hq-linked-to-satellites-missiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/329994\/","title":{"rendered":"IDF hits IRGC aerospace HQ linked to satellites, missiles"},"content":{"rendered":"

The IDF<\/a> on Sunday attacked Iran\u2019s Aerospace Headquarters, used for launching satellites, which could potentially be incorporated in future attempts to develop nuclear weapons that could be fired into space and hit the US.<\/p>\n

The headquarters had been used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps<\/a> \u00a0to promote its aerospace efforts, including the 2022 launch of the Khayyam satellite, which was successfully launched by Iran using a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.<\/p>\n

When that satellite successfully launched into space, it presented serious national security and intelligence concerns for Israel and the West.<\/p>\n

Until Sunday\u2019s attack on the site, Israeli officials were concerned that both the Khayyam and the latest space cooperation between Moscow and Tehran<\/a> would increase Iran\u2019s capabilities to launch ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles), as well as improve its monitoring of targets in the Jewish state and throughout the region in the short term.<\/p>\n

An additional concern for Jerusalem was that Khayyam and future Russian<\/a>-Iranian satellites could reduce Israeli spies\u2019 ability to penetrate the Islamic Republic\u2019s border with operations that hold back Tehran\u2019s nuclear progress.<\/p>\n

\"SmokeSmoke rises following an explosion, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 7, 2026 (credit: REUTERS\/STRINGER)Israel strikes Iranian satellite program site<\/p>\n

Earlier in 2022, The Washington Post reported that Russia was preparing to provide Iran with an advanced satellite that would enable it to track potential military targets across the Middle East, sending shudders through much of the region.<\/p>\n

The report had said that the new satellite would allow \u201ccontinuous monitoring of facilities ranging from Persian Gulf oil refineries and Israeli military bases to Iraqi barracks that house US troops,\u201d citing three unnamed sources \u2013 a current and a former US official and a senior Middle Eastern government official briefed on the sale.<\/p>\n

On December 28, 2025, just before the protests in Iran began, Tehran simultaneously launched three domestically developed satellites into space from a Russian launch site, just as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on his way to meet with US President Donald Trump to discuss the Iranian threat and other regional issues.<\/p>\n

Israeli officials interpreted the launches, which were announced multiple times in advance, as a show of the Islamic Republic\u2019s defiance of attempts by Jerusalem and Washington to impose a new balance of power on it following the 12 Day War in June.<\/p>\n

Prior to the June war, Tehran managed numerous satellite launches, some on its own and some in conjunction with Moscow.<\/p>\n

During that period of time, both Israel and America viewed these satellite launches as immensely dangerous due to the potential dual-use threat and Iran\u2019s move toward producing nuclear weapons. However, following the June war, Iran\u2019s nuclear program was left in shambles. This left the significance of the satellite launches as more of an open question.<\/p>\n

There are still three ways that the launches could pose a threat to Israel and the US.<\/p>\n

The first would be that, even if other aspects of Iran\u2019s nuclear program were destroyed or frozen, progress for ICBM technology would mean that if the Islamic Republic were to make progress in other areas, this aspect of the program might be more advanced and ready.<\/p>\n

Second, Iran has attacked Israel with three massive barrages of ballistic missiles multiple times since 2024, raising awareness of the extent of its conventional missile threat separate from the nuclear threat. If Tehran improved its ICBM capabilities, its ballistic missiles may eventually pose a direct threat to Washington and Western Europe, as they already do to Jerusalem, the Saudis, and Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n

Third, some satellites are used for surveillance, and along with Russia, Iran might significantly up its game in being able to spy on Israel and its military units.<\/p>\n

Up until now, Jerusalem\u2019s major advantage over Iran has been intelligence from its surveillance satellites.
There were concerns that Iran could even the score in that arena.<\/p>\n

Vahid Yazdanian, head of the Iranian Space Research Center and a deputy communications and information technology minister at the time, said the three satellites \u2013 Paya (Tolu-3), Zafar-2, and the second prototype of Kowsar-1.5 \u2013 were built by the private sector.<\/p>\n

Despite Iranian progress, Israel has been highly successful in achieving surprise attacks against the Islamic Republic during the current war, and the latest attacks may remove or heavily delay any potential ICBM in the future.
It is unclear why the site had not been attacked earlier during this war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The IDF on Sunday attacked Iran\u2019s Aerospace Headquarters, used for launching satellites, which could potentially be incorporated in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,1031,85,87,53065,55,46,43,8679,157283,1593,3336,1032],"class_list":["post-329994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-idf","tag-il","tag-iran","tag-irgc","tag-islamic-republic","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-nuclear-weapon","tag-operation-roaring-lion","tag-russia","tag-tehran","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}