Tag Archives: Iran

As more countries around the world look to develop their own space capabilities, organisations, and policies, SpaceWatch Middle East’s Editor-in-Chief, Helen Jameson, examines the importance of technology transfer in developing space power in the Middle East and Africa. Space. It’s becoming a priority, and the fascination and realisation that what …

Iran’s test launch of its Simorgh space launch vehicle (SLV) on July 27, 2017, caused significant yet unsurprising controversy throughout the international community. Two months later, with the dust literally settling, Natalie Fuchs – SpaceWatch Middle East’s contributing editor on all things Iranian space – argues that it is possible that the U.S., its …

The head of Iran’s Astronautics Research Institute (ARI), Fathollah Ommi, has stated that Iran is “conducting research to send a man to space,” with the intent to be able to act on this research within eight years. Iran’s human spaceflight programme has had a series of fits and starts, most …

In Part Four of the SpaceWatch Middle East multi-week theme on China’s Space Silk Road and the Middle East, Dr. Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) in New Delhi, India, offers an Indian perspective on China’s Space Silk Road, and points out that despite the rhetoric from Beijing, …

Over the course of this coming week, SpaceWatch Middle East is running the first part of a multi-week theme on China’s Space Silk Road and the Middle East. Today, as a scene setter, Benjamin Habib and Viktor Faulknor of LaTrobe University in Australia, provide an overview of China’s Belt and Road …

Centuries ago, China and Europe were connected by a number of trade routes across the Eurasian landmass and the Indian Ocean that were later known as the Silk Road. These Silk Roads not only connected the ancient Chinese Middle Kingdom and Medieval Europe, but also connected regions of Eurasia that …

The Iranian government minister responsible for the space portfolio has stated that he will step down before the start of President Hassan Rouhani’s second term. Mahmoud Vaezi, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology, has been responsible for Iran Space Agency activities as well as negotiations with Russia and other …

Iran launched its Simorgh space launch vehicle (SLV) into space on Thursday, July 27, 2017, from the Imam Khomeini Space Centre. The Simorgh SLV (Farsi for ‘Phoenix’) was not thought to have carried a payload. The U.S. Air Force’s Joint Space Operations Centre (JSpOC) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in …

In the space of one week Iranian space officials have simultaneously announced plans to start their own satellite navigation programme and that an old satellite built by an Italian company is too expensive to launch and so will be consigned to a space museum. To anyone who closely observes Iranian …

Israel and India have signed major space cooperation agreements during an official visit July 4-6, 2017, by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Israel. The two countries already have a cooperative agreement on space launches, with several Israeli satellites launched on Indian space launch vehicles in recent years. The agreements …