Iran's state television from Washington on Sunday before Tehran launches a solid-fuel rocket into space and is expected to resume stagnant negotiations on a tattered nuclear deal with Tehran's world powers. He said he was reprimanded.
It is unknown when and where the rocket was launched, but it was released after satellite imagery showed preparations at Iran's Imam Khomeini Spaceport in the countryside of Semnan Province, Iran.
State media has aired dramatic footage of the explosion against the backdrop of heightened tensions over Tehran's nuclear program, which is competing under reduced international surveillance.
Iran had previously admitted that it was planning further testing of its first satellite-mounted rocket launched in February last year.
Ahmad Hosseini, a spokesman for the Iranian Ministry of Defense, is 25.5 long enough to collect data in low orbit and carry 220 kilograms (485 pounds) of satellites to promote Iran's space industry. Zuljana, a metric rocket, said. Zuljana is named after the horse of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
The White House said it knew of Iran's announcement and criticized the move as "useless and unstable." He said he is committed to taking sanctions and other measures to prevent further development of Iran's ballistic missile program.
The launch is the day after European Union Foreign Policy Director Josep Borrell visits Tehran to revive negotiations on Iran's nuclear program, which has been stagnant for several months. Several important issues remain, including Tehran's request for Washington to lift terrorist sanctions on the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Borrell said on Saturday that negotiations on a nuclear deal would resume in the unnamed Persian Gulf country within a few days, and Iranian media reported that Qatar was likely to host the negotiations. rice field.
Former President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal in 2018 and imposed sanctions on Iran. Tehran responded by significantly strengthening its nuclear development and is now enriching uranium closer to the weapons-grade level than ever before.
In a further escalation that limits the international community's view of the nuclear program, Iran removed more than 20 International Atomic Energy Agency cameras from its nuclear site this month. Authorities called the move a "fatal blow" to the tattered nuclear deal.
Tehran's rocket launch sounded a warning in Washington as the nuclear deal was unraveled. The United States has warned of launching against a UN Security Council resolution calling on Iran to avoid activities related to ballistic missiles capable of launching nuclear weapons.
According to the U.S. intelligence agency's 2022 threat assessment released in March, such satellite launch rockets use "similar technology" and therefore "similar technology" to Iran's intercontinental ballistic missiles. "Shorten the timeline."
Iran, which has long stated that it does not seek nuclear weapons, has maintained satellite launches and has no military component in rocket testing.
Despite the Iranian government's focus on space, sending some short-lived satellites into orbit, and launching monkeys into space in 2013, the program has recently been in trouble. The Simurgh program, a type of satellite-mounted rocket, failed to launch five times in a row. A fire at Imam Khomeini Spaceport in February 2019 also killed three researchers.
The launch pad used to prepare the Zuljana rocket for launch remains damaged by the August 2019 explosion that caught the attention of then-President Trump. He later tweeted what looked like a classified surveillance image of a launch failure. February satellite imagery suggested a failed launch of Zuljanah earlier this year, although Iran did not admit it.
Meanwhile, in April 2020, Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps unveiled its own secret space program by successfully launching a satellite into orbit. The Security Force operates its own military infrastructure in parallel with Iran's regular army.