Secondo quanto è stato annunciato dak Ministro iraniano per le Comunucazioni l'Iran metterà in orbita tre satelliti entro il 2018.
I lanci avverranno in particolare sevondo il calendario iraniano a partire da Marzo 2017 ed entro marzo 2018.
Si conosce al momento soltanto il nome del primo satellite.
Si tratta di Dousti (Farsi for
Friendship), anche conosciuto come SharifSat, un microsatellite di 5'0 Kg dedicato ad applicazioni di telerilevamento e realizzato dal Iran Space Agency’s Remote Sensing Laboratory.
In what appears to be another schedule slippage in the Iranian space
programme, the Iranian Minister for Communication and Information
Technology, Mahmoud Vaezi, announced that three domestically built
satellites will be launched by 2018.
The first satellite scheduled for launch is the
“One of the satellites – Sharif Sat or Dousti will be put into orbit
by the end of the year, while two more satellites will be launched by
the end of the next Iranian calendar year,” said Minister Vaezi to
Iranian journalists. Vaezi was referring to the end of the Iranian
calendar year that takes place on 20 March 2017.
Iranian officials have been announcing the imminent launch of Dousti
throughout most of 2016, indicating that there might be problems with
readying an Iranian Simorgh space launch vehicle (SLV), or securing a
place on a manifest of a Russian or Chinese SLV. In either case, Doosti
has been ready for launch for many months now.
The delay in Doosti’s launch also suggests that ultimately Iranian
officials may have to choose between prioritising a domestic satellite
manufacturing capability or a domestic space launch capability as
resources for its space programme become tighter.
Vaezi made no mention of the names and functions of the other two
satellites to be launched by 20 March 2018, the end of the 2018 calendar
year in Iran.