Iran to Launch New Satellites

Iran’s Minister of Information and Communications Technology said the new homegrown “Zafar” satellites are ready to be launched into orbit.

Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi announced in a post on his Twitter account on Sunday that the Zafar (victory) satellites have successfully passed the tests.

Lauding the efforts by the young Iranian scientists working on the project, he said the satellites would be deployed to the space center on Sunday and the process of launching them into orbit will soon kick off.

Azari Jahromi also hailed the production of the homegrown satellites and satellite-carrier as a major step in space research activities.

Zafar is a monitoring satellite, which will be sent into a geostationary orbit that is a circular orbit around 36,000 kilometers (22,320 miles) above the Earth’s equator.

The satellite will reportedly have a lifespan of one year and six months, and will capture images and transmit them to stations on earth.