Referring to the latest status of Payam satellite, launched successfully yesterday with the Simorgh satellite carrier, but unfortunately failed to be placed into the orbit, Motamedi described as “favorable” the technical performance of the satellite, underlining that “Payam was sending out signals from the space for about 6 minutes, indicating that the satellite works fine.”

Pointing to the current location of the satellite, he said “according to GPS data active until the last minute, Payam fell into Indian Ocian, after failure to be located into the orbit.”

Regarding the reasons behind the failure to put Payam satellite into orbit at 500 kilometers altitude, Chancellor of Amirkabir University said “the launcher had not correctly calculated the initial speed of the satellite.”

He also pointed to fuel-related issues as another reason for the failure in putting the satellite into the orbit. Motamedi added that the satellite did not have any problem regarding its launch direction and flight.

“Given the order by Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi to design and build the next satellite, named ‘Payam 2’, our team of scientists will prepare it for launch in less than a year, thanks to the technical knowledge we have now acquired,” he stressed.

Iran successfully launched domestically-built satellite, ‘Payam’, into space yesterday, however, technical problems that occurred during the final stage of the launch prevented the spacecraft from reaching orbit.

Payam (meaning ‘message’ in Persian) was designed and developed by experts of Amirkabir University of Technology to carry out imagery and telecommunication missions. It was aimed to orbit the Earth at an altitude of 500 kilometers to take surveying images at high resolutions.

On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the glorious victory of the Islamic Revolution, Iran has launched a domestically-built satellite into space with an aim to collect environmental information to boost the country’s forecasting system; however, technical problems that occurred during the final stage of the launch prevented the spacecraft from reaching orbit.

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami congratulated the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution and the defeat of the Arrogant front and the Dominant system against the greatness and resistance of the great nation of Iran.

He also felicitated the honorable and noble nation of Iran on the great national project of launching Payam satellite; “I appreciate the efforts of the scientists, researchers and specialists of the Ministry of Defense’s Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO), who successfully designed, built and launched satellite carriers of Safir 1 family, including Omid, Rasad, Navid and Fajr, which put the name of Iran into the list of countries that enjoy the capability of launching sattelite into the orbit; according to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s space strategy and the roadmap for developing satellite carriers, AIO put it on the agenda to design and build bigger satellite carriers and Simorgh project was developed as the first step in this regard, with the aim of launching satellites weighing 250 kilograms to orbit at 500 kilometers altitude.”

The defense minister describing the features of Simorgh satellite carrier, said the propulsion system of Simorgh had been powered by four main engines in the first stage, each generating up to 29,000 kilograms-force (280 kN; 64,000 lbf) of thrust; its control system also uses four engines to control the flight on the first stage; its propulsion system had also been powered by two engines in the second stage.”

Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi tweeted on Tuesday that the first and second stages of the space mission had been performed successfully, but that the Simorgh satellite carrier had failed to accelerate to orbital speed in the third stage.

“The Payam (Message) satellite was successfully launched this morning aboard the satellite carrier. But the satellite unfortunately failed to be placed in orbit in the final stage,” said the minister.