Iran to launch 3 more satellites

Xinjuanet.com: Iran to launch 3 more satellites
TEHRAN, June 16 (Xinhua) -- Head of Iranian Space Agency (ISA) said that Iran will launch three more satellites in space by the end of Iranian calendar year, ending on March 20, the state IRIB TV website said on Thursday.

Iran, on Wednesday, announced that it "successfully" put the Rasad (surveillance) satellite in the orbit to render images to the stations in the country.

Three satellites will be put in the space in August, in October and in February respectively, said ISA Head Hamid Fazeli.

He also added that Iran plans to launch its domestically-built satellite carrier, Kavoshgar 5 (Explorer5), into space in two months, the English language satellite Press TV reported on Thursday.

Kavoshgar 5 weighs 285 kg and will be launched at an altitude of 120 kilometers suborbital, he was quoted as saying.

Iran's Defense Minister, General Ahmad Vahidi, said Thursday that Iran plans to construct bigger and heavier satellites and satellite carriers in the future, semi-official Mehr agency reported.

The Rasad satellite launched on Wednesday, weighs 15.3 kilograms and has been designed to be launched at 260 kilometers above the earth and will circle the earth 15 times in every 24 hours.

The Rasad satellite project was the result of cooperation between the aerospace organization and Malek Ashtar University both affiliated to Iran's ministry of defense and Iranian Space Agency, Press TV said.

The Rasad, the country's first imaging satellite, has all the features of big satellite despite its small dimensions under the category of micro-satellites.

The major part of the subsystems of a large satellite are found in this micro satellite, among which the subsystems for power management, the solar panels, the situation control devices, the optical loads, the GPS, the on-board input and command management system, the onboard receiver and transmitter, the ranging transmitter, and the temperature control system can be mentioned, said the official IRNA news agency on Thursday.

All the procedure of designing, construction, testing and preparations to launch the satellite was conducted domestically by Iranian experts, Iran announced on Wednesday.

Iran in March launched a new bio-capsule into space with its Kavoshgar 4 (Explore 4) rocket, to study the performance of the system and the sub-systems of programming.

The capsule was also developed to conduct some important scientific experiments, including the test of the launch pad, engine of the rocket, electronic and telemetry systems, separation system of engine from the prow, sensors, parachutes, ranging and heating systems.

In April, Fazeli said that Iran intends to design and build a remote sensing satellite jointly with the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO) member states.

"Iranian scientists have always taken part in APSCO meetings," Fazeli told semi-official ISNA news agency adding that, "designing and building a remote-sensing satellite is one of the fields for cooperation."