Iran Unveils New Naval Ballistic Missile

Iranian officials check the Zolfaghar Basir installed on a launcher truck during the inauguration of Tehran's National Aerospace Park on Sunday. Tasnim
Iranian officials check the Zolfaghar Basir installed on a launcher truck during the inauguration of Tehran's National Aerospace Park on Sunday. Tasnim
TT

Iran Unveils New Naval Ballistic Missile

Iranian officials check the Zolfaghar Basir installed on a launcher truck during the inauguration of Tehran's National Aerospace Park on Sunday. Tasnim
Iranian officials check the Zolfaghar Basir installed on a launcher truck during the inauguration of Tehran's National Aerospace Park on Sunday. Tasnim

Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Sunday unveiled a new naval ballistic missile with a potential range of over 700 kilometers, local media reported.

The missile, dubbed "Zolfaghar Basir", is the naval variant of the surface-to-surface Zolfaghar ballistic missile, according to Tasnim news agency.

Its range is more than twice that of Iran’s other naval missiles, including the "Hormuz-2", with a range of 300 kilometers, which Tehran said it successfully tested in March 2017.

Tasnim did not specify whether or not the new missile has been tested yet.

Images published by Tasnim showed the Zolfaghar Basir installed on a launcher truck during the inauguration of Tehran's National Aerospace Park on Sunday.

"This exhibition shows the comprehensive plan of the deterrent power of (Iran's) system," Guards commander Major General Hossein Salami said at the inauguration, according to Tasnim.

The unveiling of the Zolfaghar Basir comes more than a week after an American aircraft carrier crossed the strategic Strait of Hormuz, and days after the Guards opened a new naval base near the waterway.

Tensions have soared between Washington and Tehran under US President Donald Trump, who pulled out of a landmark 2015 nuclear accord and unilaterally reimposed sanctions on Iran.



Russia Launches Soyuz Rocket with Dozens of Satellites, Including Two from Iran

A Soyuz-2.1b rocket booster with a Fregat upper stage, carrying Russian the Meteor-M spacecraft and 18 Russian and foreign additional small satellites, blasts off from a launchpad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, February 29, 2024. Roscosmos/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
A Soyuz-2.1b rocket booster with a Fregat upper stage, carrying Russian the Meteor-M spacecraft and 18 Russian and foreign additional small satellites, blasts off from a launchpad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, February 29, 2024. Roscosmos/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
TT

Russia Launches Soyuz Rocket with Dozens of Satellites, Including Two from Iran

A Soyuz-2.1b rocket booster with a Fregat upper stage, carrying Russian the Meteor-M spacecraft and 18 Russian and foreign additional small satellites, blasts off from a launchpad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, February 29, 2024. Roscosmos/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
A Soyuz-2.1b rocket booster with a Fregat upper stage, carrying Russian the Meteor-M spacecraft and 18 Russian and foreign additional small satellites, blasts off from a launchpad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, February 29, 2024. Roscosmos/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

Russia launched a Soyuz rocket early on Tuesday carrying two satellites designed to monitor the space weather around Earth and 53 small satellites, including two Iranian ones, Russia's Roscosmos space agency said.
The Soyuz-2.1 launch spacecraft, which lifted off from Russia's Vostochny Cosmodrome, carried two Ionosfera-M satellites, which will become part of the space system for monitoring the Earth's ionosphere, the agency said.
The ionosphere, where Earth's atmosphere meets space, stretches roughly 50 to 400 miles (80 to 644 km) above Earth's surface, according to information provided on NASA's website.
Each Ionosfera-M satellite weighs 430 kg (948 lb) and its working orbit is at an altitude of 820 km (510 miles), according to Interfax news agency.
The system will include in total four of the Ionosfera-M satellites. The next two devices are planned to be launched in 2025, Roscosmos reported.
Among the 53 small satellites are two Iranian satellites, the Kowsar, a high-resolution imaging satellite, and Hodhod, a small communications satellite, as well as the first Russian-Chinese student satellite Druzhba ATURK, Reuters reported.
Russia in February launched into space an Iranian research satellite that will scan Iran's topography from orbit, Iran's state media reported at the time.