‘Soha’ Satellite Launch Set for 2018

Iran will send a new domestically-built sensing-operational satellite, named ‘Soha’ into orbit next year, head of Iran Space Research Center, Hassan Haddadpour, said on Sunday. “The first sensor-operational satellite will be launched next year and is named Soha,” he said, Fars News Agency reported. Elaborating on the satellite’s capabilities, he said it would be able to detect objects with image resolution of 15 million pixels and will be placed at an orbit of 36,000km. Iranian Telecoms Minister Mahmoud Vaezi had announced earlier that two new Iranian-made satellites, namely Nahid 1 (Venus 1) and Payam-e-Amir Kabir, have been launched into space but are not fully operational yet. Iran in February unveiled the two satellites as well as a space tug built for the first time in the country.