US quietly acknowledges IRGC satellite blastoff
The US has quietly acknowledged that Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force successfully put an imaging satellite into orbit this week.
The launch of satellite Noor-3 (Light-3) into orbit on Wednesday resembled others previously criticized by Washington, as it claims it helps Tehran’s ballistic missile program, AP reported. According to AP, the US military has not responded to repeated requests for comment from the news agency since Iran announced the launch of the Noor-3 satellite, the latest successful launch by the IRGC after Iran’s civilian space program faced a series of failed launches in recent years.
Early Friday, however, data published by the website space-track.org listed a launch Wednesday by Iran that put the Noor-3 satellite into orbit. Information for the website is supplied by the 18th Space Defense Squadron of the US Space Force, the newest arm of the US military.
It put the satellite at over 450 kilometers (280 miles) above the Earth’s surface, which corresponds to Iranian state media reports regarding the launch. It also identified the rocket carrying the satellite as a Qassed, a three-stage rocket fueled by both liquid and solid fuels first launched by Iran in 2020, when it unveiled its then-secret space program.
Speaking on Thursday, Space Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force Ali Jafarabadi described the satellite as having “image accuracy that is two and a half times that of the Noor-2 satellite.” Noor-2, launched in March 2022, remains in orbit. Noor-1, launched in 2020, fell back to Earth last year.