TEHRAN (FNA)- Head of the Iranian Space Agency (ISA) Morteza Barari said on Saturday that experts and scientists at the Tehran-based Amirkabir University of Technology will start the development project of a telecommunication satellite dubbed “Payam 2” by late May.
Barari said today that three development plans for building “Payam 2” are being reviewed and the production operation will commence within three weeks, once the best plan is selected.
Building the device will take up to four years, he added.
The move comes after an earlier version of the satellite, dubbed “Payam”, was successfully launched into space in January, but the technical problems that occurred during the final stage of the launch prevented the spacecraft from reaching orbit.
Following the incident, Minister of Communications and Information Technology Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said that Iran failed to orbit Payam satellite successfully.
The rocket carrying the Payam satellite failed to reach the “necessary speed” in the third stage of its launch, Azari Jahromi said at the time.
According to him, the rocket had successfully passed its first and second stages before developing problems in the third. He did not elaborate on what caused the rocket failure.
President of Amir Kabir University of Technology Seyed Ahmad Motamedi underlined in February Iran’s capability to orbit high-quality satellites in an altitude 500km above the Earth.
“We are able to send satellites to the 500-km altitude and we can design satellites based on international standards,” Motamedi said, addressing a meeting in Tehran in February.
Iran is one of the 9 superior states in building satellites beside the US, Russia, Europe and Canada.
Barari had announced in mid-December that Iran was planning to manufacture a home-made telecommunication satellite in the next few years.
“Building an indigenized telecommunication satellite within the next 7 years is atop the ISA’s plans,” Barari said.
He added that the preliminary steps had already been taken by Iran to manufacture a telecommunication satellite by building Nahid 1 and Nahid 2 satellites.
Barari underlined that Iran also planned to build a sensing satellite with a 1-meter precision power in 7 years.
Barari had also announced in October that his country was standing among the 9 top world countries in developing satellites.
He also added that Iran ranked first in the region in the aerospace sector, explaining that Iran ranked 14th in the world in 2016 but it jumped three grades and ranked 11th in the world in 2017.
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