Amid threats of war, Iran’s long-awaited space launch center at Chabahar finally nearing operating capability

Amid threats of retaliation and war in the Middle East, Iran’s long-awaited space launch center at Chabahar, first announced in 2010, is finally nearing an initial operating capability.

Despite a flurry of statements by officials in recent years suggesting that the facility was moving ahead, its construction and precise location were not independently confirmed until May 2024, when researchers at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies identified the site in satellite imagery.

Sources close to the subject matter said, “Chabahar will be Iran’s third space launch base, in addition to the Imam Khomeini Spaceport near Semnan, used by the Iranian Space Agency (ISA), and the Shahroud space center run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps”. (IRGC).

The Chabahar spaceport’s ability to launch larger rockets than the two existing facilities will enable Iran to take the next steps toward its stated space ambitions.

It’s formidable technical challenges remain, however. And although the West has long been concerned by Iran’s development of rockets for space launches as potential test beds for intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) technologies, the satellites those rockets carry may eventually prove equally valuable as military assets, insofar as they could increase the potency of Iran’s missiles and drones through enhanced targeting, navigation, and communication capabilities.

Chabahar’s Role and Advantages

Presuming Iran can develop or acquire the needed satellites and SLVs, however, its existing facilities are inadequate for launching them. The Soroush family of rockets, in particular, will be too big to launch from the space center at Semnan or the IRGC base at Shahroud, at least as they are currently configured.

Large SLVs must be assembled on the launch pad with the help of a service tower or gantry, and Soroush will not fit within the service tower at Semnan. Moreover, rockets that make use of cryogenic propellants—as Iran’s Soroush-2 will reportedly use—require specialized facilities for storing the propellant at extremely low temperatures, which neither existing space center has.

That is where the Chabahar spaceport comes in. According to Iranian officials, once it is completed Chabahar will be able to accommodate “super-heavy” liquid-fueled rockets, and there have been hints that it will have cryogenic fuel tanks on site.

Chabahar also offers other advantages over both Semnan and Shahroud that make it easier to put large payloads into orbit. First, it is in the south of the country, situated at about 25 degrees north latitude—further south even than the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Launches from Chabahar can also be oriented almost directly eastward without crossing populated areas. Launching eastward from close to the equator allows rockets to take optimal advantage of the Earth’s rotational speed and minimize the amount of energy needed to place a given payload into certain orbits.

The Military Concerns

While rockets may attract the most attention, the big SLVs that the Iranian Space Agency is planning to use at Chabahar are unlikely to pose direct military risks. Independent analysts have cautioned for years that cumbersome, liquid-fuel rockets such as the Simorgh would not make suitable weapons, reveals a new report.

Those encumbrances are even more pronounced for the Sarir and Soroush models: they will need to be erected with a crane on a fixed launch pad and pumped with tens of thousands of liters of fuel and oxidizer before taking off; they will require extensive support equipment and personnel to prepare; and all of this activity will be easy to detect over the days or even weeks leading up to a launch.[24]

Nevertheless, the U.S. intelligence community has repeatedly assessed that Iran’s SLV development activities shorten the timeline to an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) if Iran chooses to build one.

This assessment may apply particularly to the Ghaem-series solid-fuel SLVs that the IRGC is building.

Unlike liquid-fuel rockets, solid-fuel rockets come with their fuel literally baked in, allowing for much shorter launch preparation times. Moreover, the Ghaem-100 need not be assembled on the pad; it can be transported and launched from a mobile launcher, similar to a ballistic missile.

Even in the case of Iran’s liquid-fuel SLVs, work on rocket engines, airframes, stage and payload separation, guidance, and other activities could have utility for future missile designs.

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