“The [development of] Chabahar spaceport has made good progress, and we should soon expect the first satellite launch from this base,” Hassan Salarieh, head of the Iranian Space Agency told reporters.
By mid-March, he said, the country will launch four satellites including Zafar, Paya, the second model of the Kowsar satellite — an Earth observation satellite designed and built by the private sector — along with test models of the Soleimani narrowband satellite constellation.
“Our forecast is that at least by the end of this [Iranian calendar] year, these launches will take place,” Salarieh added.
Last month, Salarieh told IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News website that Iran plans to launch the first satellites in its new Soleimani constellation by March 2026.
The constellation is named after Qassem Soleimani, the late commander of Iran’s Quds Force, the overseas branch of the Revolutionary Guards, who was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.
Western governments have repeatedly voiced concern over Iran’s satellite launches, warning that the same rocket technology can be used for ballistic missiles. Tehran, however, says its space program is peaceful.
A 2019 report by the US Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s military intelligence arm, concluded that Iran’s expertise in space launch vehicles “can be used as a test bed for developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).”
A month after a US-brokered ceasefire ended June’s 12-day war with Israel, Iran’s domestically built Nahid-2 telecommunications satellite was launched into orbit aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.
In January 2024, the European Troika, Britain, France, and Germany, condemned Iran’s launch of the Soraya satellite aboard a Qaem 100 rocket, warning it “uses technology essential for the development of a long-range ballistic missile system.”
Such launches allow Iran to test technologies that could be used to further develop its ballistic missile program, the statement said, warning that such activities pose a threat to regional and international security.