JERUSALEM – Iran said on Saturday it had conducted a satellite launch, the latest for a programme the West fears improves Tehran’s ballistic missiles.
The announcement on state television said the launch was part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ space programme.
According to the state-owned IRNA news agency, the Soraya satellite was placed in an orbit at 750 kilometers (about 460 miles) above the Earth’s surface with a three-stage rocket. It did not immediately acknowledge what the satellite did.
The development comes as heightened tensions grip the wider Middle East over Israeli invasion of Gaza and just days after Iran and Pakistan engaged in tit-for-tat airstrikes in each other’s countries.
The United States has previously said Iran’s satellite launches defy a UN Security Council resolution and called on Tehran to undertake no activity involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
UN sanctions related to Iran’s ballistic missile programme expired last October.
The US intelligence community’s 2023 worldwide threat assessment said the development of satellite launch vehicles “shortens the timeline” for Iran to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile because it uses similar technology.
