Iran and China complete orbital launches
Iran’s Salman rocket lifting off today.
The launch site itself was not disclosed.
According to the official state-run press of each country, both Iran and China yesterday completed successfully launches, both of which appeared to test new capabilities of some note.
First Iran announced that it had used its Salman rocket to put a 500-kilogram capsule that it said was carrying biological samples, and was also “has the ability to carry a human,” though the mass of this capsule makes that highly unlikely. Little other information was provided. Nor has this orbital launch as yet been confirmed by the orbital monitoring services of the U.S. military. The image to the right is a screen capture from the launch video at the link, and appears to show that this rocket has only one stage, thus making an orbital launch impossible.
Assuming this orbital launch is confirmed, it was Iran’s second orbital launch in 2023 and will therefore not show up on the launch race leader board below. If further information is obtained I will update this post appropriately.
China in turn announced the successful launch today of a test satellite, using its new Smart Dragon-3 solid-fueled rocket lifting off from a barge in the South China Sea 1,300 nautical miles off the coast of Guangdong province, where Hong Kong is located. To arrive at this ocean launch location took five days. The launch thus tested the use of this mobile floating platform from remote ocean locations.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
89 SpaceX
56 China
16 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches, 101 to 56, and the entire world combined 101 to 90. SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 89 to 90, though it has another launch planned for tonight, with the live stream here.
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Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
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Iran’s Salman rocket lifting off today.
The launch site itself was not disclosed.
According to the official state-run press of each country, both Iran and China yesterday completed successfully launches, both of which appeared to test new capabilities of some note.
First Iran announced that it had used its Salman rocket to put a 500-kilogram capsule that it said was carrying biological samples, and was also “has the ability to carry a human,” though the mass of this capsule makes that highly unlikely. Little other information was provided. Nor has this orbital launch as yet been confirmed by the orbital monitoring services of the U.S. military. The image to the right is a screen capture from the launch video at the link, and appears to show that this rocket has only one stage, thus making an orbital launch impossible.
Assuming this orbital launch is confirmed, it was Iran’s second orbital launch in 2023 and will therefore not show up on the launch race leader board below. If further information is obtained I will update this post appropriately.
China in turn announced the successful launch today of a test satellite, using its new Smart Dragon-3 solid-fueled rocket lifting off from a barge in the South China Sea 1,300 nautical miles off the coast of Guangdong province, where Hong Kong is located. To arrive at this ocean launch location took five days. The launch thus tested the use of this mobile floating platform from remote ocean locations.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
89 SpaceX
56 China
16 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise still leads China in successful launches, 101 to 56, and the entire world combined 101 to 90. SpaceX by itself now trails the rest of the world (excluding other American companies) 89 to 90, though it has another launch planned for tonight, with the live stream here.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
It just looks like a Shahab-3 with a modified cargo capsule.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahab-3
Which can reach Israel, but………
https://breakingdefense.com/2023/10/in-first-israels-arrow-air-defense-system-intercepts-ballistic-missile-near-red-sea-idf/
Salman is the second stage of the Qased rocket. I can’t find a good diagram, and the image above is different from the image shown for the original Noor satellite launch, so it’s impossible to say for sure how it works. But that payload fairing is substantially larger than the previous version, so I assume the second (and possibly third) stages are inside the fairing. It’s also possible that what looks like a fairing is actually the second stage, note the horizontal black line, it could be that below that is the upper stage, and the payload is just in the cone at the top.
What I worry about is a simple gun-type warhead with chaff, a warhead of stealth facets and a proximity fuse.
Israeli incoming might hit the shroud, or trigger a proximity fuse…Iran settling for an EMP strike.
To my knowledge, Iran does not have a launch vehicle to carry 500 kg to orbit. I believe this was only a suborbital flight, as indicated by the stated summit altitude of 130 km. There is no stable orbit at this altitude. It is therefore very likely that the author of the original article is wrong (note to Mr. Zimmerman!). According to my research, there is no Iranian orbital rocket named Salman either. As others have pointed out, a second stage has this name.
That is not a Salman solid rocket in the picture.
By all the details in the picture that is a Shahab-3. The fins match, the body match, the engines match, and that does not look like solid fuel exhaust.
That red line up the side is just painted black on a regular Shahab-3.
Its just a bulky capsule adapter on top. Like the falcon9 and others use.
By reducing the Shehab-3 cargo down to 500 kg from 1200kg it might give it a way for a soft parachute recovery system and an added larger diameter adapter.
Its all for show as far as I am concerned.
pzatchok: What I have not been able to determine is whether it made orbit, even if that orbit was low (80 miles) and would decay relatively rapidly. If it did then this was an orbital launch. If not, then I must remove it from my count.
I have been searching for some indication one way or the other, but have not found it. Anyone out there know more?
They could have used a Qased rocket but those are three stages using both liquid and solid fuel sections.
But they look quite a bit different than what is in the picture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qased_(rocket)
No one seems to have confirmed it yet but this sight hints that Iran does not yet have any recovery systems available for any space craft. No heat shields or parachutes capable of bring an orbital vehicle back safe.
https://www.space.com/iran-bio-capsule-rocket-launch