Iran watchCalculations show Iran's 2 February launch used beefed-up rocket
Calculations show that Iran’s 2 February missile launch involved a more sophisticated and powerful rocket than had been initially thought; this two-stage vehicles, with more powerful fuel, are capable of lifting a nuclear warhead farther; Europe — but not yet the United States — is now within Iranian missile range
Note: On Monday we will begin a 4-part series on Iran’s nuclear weapons program and the world’s reaction to it.
- Monday: Taking stock: Where does the Iranian nuclear weapon program stand?
- Tuesday: What’s past is prologue: Israel intensified covert campaign against Iran’s nuclear project
- Wednesday, Review of Ronen Bergman’s The Secret War with Iran
- Thursday, What if: Iran’s retaliatory options in case of an attack on Iran
The evidence is mounting that the Iranian rocket recently used to launch a satellite was more powerful and advanced than initially thought (see “Countdown Toward Israeli Attack on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Has Begun,” 3 February 2009 HS Daily Wire). Iran entered the exclusive club of nations capable of putting things in Earth orbit on 2 February, when it launched a small satellite using a homegrown rocket for the first time. Called Omid, or “Hope,” the satellite is a 40-centimeter-wide cube with a mass of 27 kilograms.
New Scientist’s David Shiga writes that there has been much debate about whether the rocket that launched it was relatively crude and inefficient, operating at the limits of its capabilities, or a more advanced type that could eventually be upgraded to put astronauts in orbit. Iran has released few details about the rocket, called Safir-2, leaving outsiders to guess at its capabilities.
Initially, rocket experts thought the Safir-2 was based on Scud missile technology, which Iran is known to have obtained previously from North Korea. Scuds, and other rockets derived from them, are less powerful than more advanced rockets because they burn a relatively inefficient fuel — a mixture of kerosene and nitric acid. Even a two-stage Scud-type rocket, with the second stage separating and igniting after the first stage provided an initial burst of speed, would not be powerful enough to reach orbit. It was thus thought that Iran had mounted a very small, solid-fueled third stage on this kind of launch vehicle to provide the final kick needed to get Omid to orbit.
Shiga writes that soon after Omid’s launch, amateur satellite trackers reported that the final stage, which also reached orbit, appears much too bright to be a small third stage, offering evidence perhaps that it might be a two-stage vehicle using more advanced technology instead. New calculations have reinforced this view, showing that a two-stage rocket the size of Safir-2 could get Omid to orbit if it had ditched the scud design in favor of engines that use more efficient hydrazine fuel.
“I think it’s [now] much more
