Iran To Launch 6 Satellites by March 2024, says Deputy Defense Minister

Iran’s deputy defense minister and CEO of Iran Electronics Industries (IEI), Amir Rastegari, announced on Tuesday that Iran was preparing six satellites for launch by March 2024. Rastegari expressed hopes that IEI would be able to launch two CubeSats and the homegrown Earth observation satellite Tolou-3 into low Earth orbit by that time. Tolou-3, weighing 150 kilograms, is Iran’s first miniature satellite, capable of taking black-and-white photos with a 5-meter spatial resolution and colored photos with a 10-meter resolution. Rastegari noted that IEI had cooperated well with the Iranian Space Agency and Russia and is negotiating with the Aerospace Industries Organization of Iran’s Defense Ministry and Russia to expedite the launch of Iranian satellites. In August 2022, Iran successfully launched the Khayyam satellite into space from the Baikonur space station in Kazakhstan using Russia’s Soyuz satellite carrier rocket.