State Television Says Iran Launches New Satellite Into Space 81
An anonymous reader writes State television in Iran is reporting the Islamic Republic has launched a new satellite into space, its fourth in recent years to orbit the Earth. The report Monday quoted Defense Minister Gen. Hossein Dehghan saying the satellite, designed and built in Iran, is named "Fajr," or dawn in Farsi. The report did not elaborate.
I love the snark here (Score:4, Funny)
I wonder if the Sputnik launch was accompanied by snarky headline "Soviet News Agency Claims to Have Launched Satellite (that's what they CLAIM, wink, wink)"
Re: I love the snark here (Score:3, Informative)
Nope. Sputnik produced a signal, a repetitive beep, that could be picked up by amateur radio operators. Not only could US citizens verify Sputnik for themselves, but cold war paranoia ascribed various sinister purposes to the beep. It was to signal sleeper agents or mind control people or something. In reality, it was just a beep. The soviets had a proper satellite (Sputnik 3) that they wanted to send up but it wasn't ready in time
Re: I love the snark here (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: I love the snark here (Score:4, Informative)
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It exists because the rockets used for satellites and for ballistic missiles are close enough for the former to be a way to get the latter.
It's much cheaper to rent payload space from Russia, the only reason to do it yourself is if you want the military capability.
The same goes for enriching uranium to 20%, there is only one reason to do that.
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Iran has faked missile launches before...
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Yeah, I refuse to believe this until I see a photoshop image proving it.
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Here's some CGI video
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iran-says-it-launches-domestically-made-satellite-into-orbit-389709 [jpost.com]
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Apparently not this time:
NORAD ID 40387 [n2yo.com]
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Actually, it's newsworthy because there was a reasonable amount of evidence showing that their space program was simply an ICBM program by another name.
What makes this stand out, is that it was only a couple of weeks ago that they said they were shutting down their space program, and the world was relieved, because the threat of an Iranian ICBM/Nuclear program whether real or imagined was off the table.
Whether it's true or not, this puts it back on the table, and that brings back the risks of instability.
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that brings back the risks of instability.
At the same time they propose to route Azerbaijani gas through their country in an offer to diversify the EUs energy sources (and also buying themselves an insurance policy against military strikes), while high-profile western politicians suck up to the new Saudi King lauding reforms in the country with an unparalleled hypocrisy (e.g. in relation to human rights issues, etc.) just because it suits them.
Fuck politics and fear mongering war hawks.
Let Iran do whatever they want, they're a sovereign nation an
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The problem with letting a country do whatever it wants as long as it's not impacting anyone else is that sometimes, eventually it does.
The West let Germany do whatever it wanted in the 1930s as long as it wasn't impacting anyone else, and it was great, until it did. Similarly the last 15 years has seen the West leaving Russia alone, and look what happened, it invaded Georgia and has now invaded Ukraine.
You need not just to know that they're not currently impacting anyone else, but confidence to believe tha
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Regardless of that and the notion of "who are 'you' to decide the future of another nation" -- the attitude that is probably creating most tensions all over the world and should be long gone --, it is possible to have a check on all and any movement of every military unit.
Such an omniscience in relation to reconnaissance coupled with the military capability of the UN is more than enough to prevent any of the non-superpower countries from doing anything that could se
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"You're waaay oversimplifying events here."
No on the contrary, I'm doing the opposite, I'm bringing the complexities of reality into your simplification.
"Regarding Russia's so-called aggression"
Sorry, I'm struggling to take you seriously. Even if you disagree on Eastern Ukraine being a de-facto Russian invasion now, even Russia itself admits the military units that locked down Crimea were Russian soldiers. How can you possibly believe this is anything other than aggression? Once you move your troops onto fo
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I guess we both agree that it's humiliating for all participating parties to let it have come to this and both hope that the situation won't escalate further.
Regarding Crimea, and after looking at what is happening in the east, I fully support Russia's sending in of troops to avert the coup-powers treating the Crimean peoples as "subhumans". Besides, the only issue, where they've overstepped their boundaries is exactly that: overstepping the boundaries of their bases' perimeters. Russia was allowed to have
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I can't tell if you're ignorant, or just Russian, but what? -
"Regarding Crimea, and after looking at what is happening in the east, I fully support Russia's sending in of troops to avert the coup-powers treating the Crimean peoples as "subhumans"."
You realise that's exactly how Russia has treated that Tatars there right by marking crosses on their doors and gates, and disappearing them in the night much like Russia used to do when it ran the USSR?
"Crimea (and Sevastopol) was an autonomous region of Ukraine
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I can't tell if you're ignorant, or just Russian, but what? -
Lots of Russians don't support what's happening, Captain Stereotype.
You realise that's exactly how Russia has treated that Tatars [...]
You do realize what the Tatars were doing during WWII? You also do realize that the USSR != Russia? You do realize that the USSR apologized?
No it hasn't, it's was a primarily Tatar population until post-World War II when the USSR ethnically cleansed them from the region.
Get your facts straight: "[Tatars were] the relative largest ethnic population until the end of 19th century[...]" ([Crimean Tatars [wikipedia.org]]
The fact you're trying to justify it tells us one thing, that you only support the Russian point of view, and are wholly against the view of almost the entirety of the rest of the world. That's not balanced or rational, that's called being a Russian puppet.
Right. Because there's only one "right" view. You know what your opinion tells me? That you've been successfully brainwashed.
As opposed to you, my view is not one-sided.
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"You do realize that the USSR apologized?"
Yeah, they also promised not to harm Ukrainian territorial integrity if Ukraine gave up it's nuclear arsenal too.
It turns out that nothing that comes out of the Russian government's mouths is trustworthy.
"my view is not one-sided"
Except it is. Your anti-US rhetoric makes that pretty clear.
Is there a lot the US did wrong last decade? Fuck yes. Has it learnt lessons? Most definitely. Is it still the biggest problem this decade? Definitely not - Russia is clearly the b
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Yeah, they also promised not to harm Ukrainian territorial integrity if Ukraine gave up it's nuclear arsenal too.
First of all, it's still up for debate, whether they did. Crimeans voted to secede, which is one of the provisions of the UN Charta [wikipedia.org].
Also, the US (as one of the signatories of the Budapest Memorandum [wikipedia.org]) was supposed to
3. Refrain from using economic pressure on Ukraine in order to influence its politics.
Instead it pumped over 5 billion USD into it and was responsible for TWO coups, one of them successful. (Check Nuland, or Obama's recent speech about how the US "brokered a deal" to transition power).
Also, stop acting as if it wasn't in everybody's fucking best interest to not have another co
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Alright Putin, calm down. It's pretty obvious you've been reading too much RT.
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No, I just fully believe in the phrase "Don't argue with an idiot, they'll just bring you down to their level and win".
The only way to win, is hence not to play.
But just on the rare off chance you are salvageable, I'll leave you with a hint as to why your whole argument is stupid. You reel off indiscretions such as US incursions into Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and so forth as unjustified examples of imperialism. Yet you write off outright annexation of part of a foreign sovereign state (Crimea), milita
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Dude, I'm trying real hard to explain the other perspective to you, you know, the one, where there's not a one-sided synchronization of all^H^H^Hmost available media, but you know, one based on certain historical facts and tidbits you might not have known, because they are not presented by the western propaganda machine (which is working just as good as the Russian one).
"military invasion of Eastern Ukraine, Russian incursions into Moldova, Azerbaijan, Syria, Latvia, Estonia, Japan, and Sweden as what, "hum
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One of the things that Iran wants is Israel destroyed. Do you really want to give Iran what it wants, as this is why it has a nuclear program to begin with?
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If I look at what Israel was doing this last year alone, I'd say they deserve a thorough beating.
They're definitely not being good sports with their (surely difficult) neighborhood, but since they probably won't be able to continue playing dirty for much longer anyway that won't matter much if they'll get a good slap from the rest o
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Civilian nuclear would be great. Iran doesn't want civilian nuclear or they would have no need for the centrifuges that were damaged by Stuxnet. Iran has come out and said on numerous occasions that they want Israel destroyed for the crime of existing.
As far as what Israel has been doing for the past year; self defense from a constant aggressor is always allowed, oh, unless it is Israel responding to constant attacks from Palestine, then they are evil people and should be slapped for being bad.
I cannot be
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Same ol' hardliners...
Yeah, it's harder to constantly strive for win-win situations, but in the end it's much more rewarding.
I don't understand why they can't just throw religion out of the equation and have two secular countries, one predominantly Jewish, the other Muslim? Do a Middle Eastern Union for fucks sake. Accept that there's two (or more) inter
No elaboration? Is it a cubesat? (Score:2, Insightful)
There's nothing particularly impressive anymore about launching a satellite into space.
Cubesats are 10cm x 10cm satellites that can be built using off-the-shelf components and cost as little as $50,000 to produce *and* launch into orbit. (Although launch costs are ramping).
If Iran state media isn't "elaborating" on the nature of the satellite then we have no reason to believe the Iranian government has done anything more impressive than launch a 10cm DIY satellite.
Re:No elaboration? Is it a cubesat? (Score:4, Funny)
It's an X10 camera on a USB stick for some advanced Iranian space photography.
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Nah, it's a GoPro, an arduino board, and an iPhone 3.
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Norway can't, except as part of the ESA.
Hell, Britain has only done it once.
(Good joke: Britain put a satellite into orbit after cancelling the program because it cost too much, they had one launcher on the pad after the cancellation and it was cheaper to try to launch it than to dismantle it).
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There can't have been many situations in human history where Just launch it into space was genuinely the right (and economical) move.
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You absolutely could.
But keep in mind that the principal expense is actually the "launch" part, not the satellite part. It's difficult to translate prices from what an orbital launch costs to achieve in the US vs. what it would cost for the government to achieve an orbital launch in Iran -- but using CubeSats as a metric, consider that the development cost of a CubeSat can be as low as $10k USD, with the remaining cost going to placing the satellite in orbit.
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The launch of cubesats is a government subsidized program. They use leftover lift capacity on NASA and USAF launches to carry the cubesats into orbit. The cost is not at all reflective of the true cost of launching a satellite.
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The launch of cubesats is a government subsidized program. They use leftover lift capacity on NASA and USAF launches to carry the cubesats into orbit. The cost is not at all reflective of the true cost of launching a satellite.
Yup, it is a bit like saying that you can build and fly a jet across the Atlantic for $100 because there was a last-minute fare special for that price.
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There's nothing particularly impressive anymore about launching a satellite into space.
What if that country is also developing nuclear weapons? If you can sent a satellite around the world, you can also send a warhead around the world.
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Re:No elaboration? Is it a cubesat? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's nothing particularly impressive anymore about launching a satellite into space.
I could be wrong: but I'm pretty sure that the ability to place anything into orbit shows considerable technical and engineering skill.
The ability to put even a small payload into orbit implies the ability to put a larger payload on an intercontinental suborbital arc... at least based on my time in Kerbal Space Program.
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Some quotes:
The Fajr (Dawn) satellite was successfully placed 450km above Earth on Monday
The satellite was locally made, said the official IRNA news agency, as was its launcher
Fajr satellite, weighing 52kg would be able to take accurate pictures from space.
the 21-metre and 26 tonne launcher, named Safir-Fajr, shows "the ability of Iran to build satellite launchers".
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I would like to point out that that person was also claiming to have WMD at the time, and was threatening their further use against the Kurds.
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Ephemerides (Score:2)
Ephemeris table or it didn't happen.
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This page has a Two-Line Element Set, from which you can compute an ephemeris:
NORAD ID 40387 [n2yo.com]
We need to "up" the game... (Score:2)
Defense Minister Gen. Hossein Dehghan saying the satellite, designed and built in Iran, is named "Fajr," or dawn in Farsi.
I guess the designing and launching of satellites isn't the preserve of the so called "developed" nations only these days. the other month, it was India. Now Iran! Folks, we need to raise the bar.
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So if you want to decide where to live, I guess you can't decide by the orbital launch capability of the government.
Dictatorships and such tend to do very well at prestige projects.
The US struggled to raise the funds to site the statue of liberty, despite the statue itself being a gift. I'm sure that if NK wanted to put up a Kim Jong-il statue they could make it 3x taller without any issue. It isn't about engineering talent - it is about the will of the government to blow hundreds of millions of dollars on a statue when people are starving.
Do they do this every February? (Score:1)
swan song? (Score:2)
Didn't Iran just cancel their space program?
https://medium.com/war-is-bori... [medium.com]
Just me? (Score:2)
Perusing the comments I am a bit shocked that nobody else seems to have noticed that the Iranian space agency there has totally ripped off their logo from the United Federation of Planets. I think somebody watched too much next-gen.
pre-emptive move to rip off NASA (Score:2)