Finally, on Sunday, Iran successfully launched three of its own satellites into orbits that are, respectively, 450 kilometers and 1,100 kilometers above Earth’s surface.
According to Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), this moves Iran one step closer to achieving the Geostationary Orbit (GEO), also known as geosynchronous orbit.
With its most recent launch, Iran made history by entering the Earth’s elliptical orbit and entering the Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO), which is located around 36,000 km above the planet’s surface. The launch was made possible by the Simorgh (Phoenix) satellite carrier.
To get to GEO, one must travel through the elliptical GTO orbit. With its features, satellites can be moved to other orbits, including GEO, while consuming the least amount of energy.
After a ten-year hiatus following the start of President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration in August 2021, Iran’s Supreme Council of Space convened once more.
The meetings, presided over by the president, have already approved the plan to reach GEO by the Iranian calendar year 1404, which is scheduled to start in March 2025.
Simorgh launched the Mahda satellite and two other research payloads into orbit simultaneously for the first time, according to Iran’s Minister of Information and Communications Technology, Issa Zarepour, and Mahda’s signal has been received.
Iran launched three satellites on Sunday: Mahda, Keyhan-2, and Hatef-1.
