Nasaspaceflight.com reports that the Safir 2A Simorgh launch vehicle has suffered another failure. The launch is reported to have taken place at 1545 GMT from the Imam Khomeini Spaceport in the Semnan Province of Iran. The initial part of the launch went well with the four-engined Shehab 5 missile derived first stage, based on North Korean technology, working well. However, later in the flight, believed to be either stage 2 or stage 3, an under-performance took place. While the rocket and spacecraft reached an apogee of 540 km, the velocity was 1 km/s short of that required to achieve stable orbit. This is the third consecutive failure of the Safir 2A Simorgh rocket. The spacecraft lost on this failure was the Zafar-1 satellite which had a dual use as a remote sensing satellite and communications satellite.
More information on this launch can be found here: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/02/irans-simorgh-rocket-fails-to-loft-zafar-1-into-orbit/
Simorgh launch on 9 February 2020 fails again. Courtesy: Mizan News Agency via nasaspaceflight.com
