Strategic Assessment

Iran became the forty-third country in the world to own a satellite when the Sinah-1, Iran’s first satellite, was launched on October 27, 2005. The Sinah-1 is an important milestone in Iran’s efforts to gain space technologies, though the actual significance of the launch is mostly in the prestige Iran gained, since the satellite was developed and launched by foreign contractors. It was carried by a Russian Kosmos-3M space launch vehicle (SLV) that took off from Plesetsk, in northern Russia. In addition to the Iranian satellite, the SLV carried seven satellites for various other states and research organizations.