Iran's space plan will witness a substantial growth in the near future, the Iranian Space Research Center, affiliated with the ICT Ministry, said.
The construction of a remote sensing and communications satellite will be completed next year.
Hassan Haddadpour, the head of ISRC, said the country's first remote sensing satellite, dubbed Soha (meaning Star in Persian), and the communications satellite Nahid-2 (Nahid is Venus in Persian) are to be completed in the next fiscal that starts on March 21.
Soha would be able to detect objects with an image resolution of 15 million pixels and will be placed in an orbit of 36,000 km. It weighs about 150 kilograms.
Nahid-2 is the successor to Nahid-1, a communications satellite that is to help improve Iran’s ranking in space communications.
Weighing approximately 100 kilograms and measuring 64 by 64 centimeters, the mission of Nahid-2 is to focus on the development and testing of basic technologies needed for building geostationary communication satellites with an operational life of two years. It can establish communications and measure radiation and test simultaneous telephone connections.
According to Haddadpour, Nahid-2 will be the first Iranian satellite to feature a propulsion system powered by lithium-ion batteries and is, therefore, expected to extend its operational lifetime beyond that of previous Iranian satellites.
Following the parliament’s approval, Iran’s space program started in 2004 and launched its first domestically-made data-processing satellite named Omid (Hope) in 2009.
The country also sent its first bio-capsule containing living creatures into space in February 2010, using the indigenous Kavoshgar-3 (Explorer-3) carrier. Iran is a founding member of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.
