Iran Space Agency to Build Communication Satellite

A contract was signed Saturday to build Nahid 2 satellite. Signatories were head of Iran Space Agency Mohsen Bahrami and the head of Iran Space Research Center Hassan Haddadpour.

Meaning Venus in the Persian language, Nahid 2 is a telecommunication satellite which will be placed in the geosynchronous orbit. Nahid 2 weighs 100kg and will have a life endurance of 2 years, ICTPRESS reported.

A geosynchronous orbit is a circular orbit 35,786 kilometers above the Earth’s equator and following the direction of the Earth’s rotation.

A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunications signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth.

Two phases have been defined for the development of Nahid 2, the first is to develop and test ‘fundamental technologies’, the second is to establish communications infrastructure. 

One of the most important subsystems of the satellite is the positioning and control system with 3-axes stabilization and precision error of three degrees. Nahid 2 will carry out orbital maneuvers. 

“Three satellites of Nahid 1, Amir Kabir and Dousti (Friendship) are ready for launch and we will send one or two satellites into the orbit by the yearend,” Bahrami told a press conference in Tehran.

“The contract for the launch has been signed and sending Nahid 1 via an indigenized satellite carrier is our priority,” he added.

Also present at the signing ceremony was Telecoms Minister Mahmoud Vaezi.

The satellites made in Iran so far have been remote sensing satellites, he said, adding that efforts for producing a local telecoms satellite began two years ago. 

The minister added that a satellite named Nahid 1 is completed and will be launched next year. Nahid 2 is a advanced version of Nahid 1. 

No figures were announced regarding the costs of the project. 

The micro-class fifty-kilogram satellite, dubbed Doosti (friendship) will hopefully be launched by the end of the current fiscal in March, Vaezi was quoted as saying. 

 Haddadpour said that the completion of Nahid 1 and 2 would help improve Iran’s ranking in space telecommunication. The projects are expected to be completed by 2021, Mehr News Agency reported. 

Iran successfully launched into orbit its first indigenous data-processing satellite, Omid (Hope) in February 2009.