Quoting the Iranian Ministry of Defence, Iran’s Mehr news agency website has reported that a Simorgh (Safir 2A) rocket has successfully launched three payloads – but the success is disputed. The payloads – assumed to be small satellites – were announced as having been launched from the Imam Khomeini Space Base, Semnan, on 30 December 2021 (launch time 0330 GMT), with the three “research cargoes” released simultaneously at an altitude of 470 km and a speed of 7.35 km /second. It was also stated that telemetry data from the launch process was successfully received.
However, Western analysts noted that the velocity was about 0.25 km/s less than required to achieve orbit, suggesting an underperformance of the third stage, and that the payloads, which had yet to be tracked by independent systems, might have crashed into the Indian Ocean near Australia.
If this is a failure and not a suborbital launch attempt, it follows a succession of Simorgh failures including at least one in June 2021 (with another that month possibly cancelled due to an on-pad failure/discovered anomaly). The orbital version of Simorgh is a three-stage liquid propellant launch vehicle using a Shehab-5 missile stage for its first stage.
Simorgh launch on 30 December 2021. Courtesy@ Mehrnews.com
