Iranian Simorgh Megathread-First Launch

[xenomorph555]

Finally after 7 years since it was announced, the first Simorgh rocket has been built and unveiled in Iran.

In case this is the first time you have heard of the Simorgh, it's basically Iran's 2nd SLV design capable of carrying heavier sats. So finally they can escape the tyranny of 50kg cubesats (what they were limited to before).

Nice vernier engines, better then the old jet vanes.

No one knows why it took till now to construct it although there are rumours it got redesigned halfway through project, either way it wont be long until it can be launched. Until then me and my Iranian friends will be excitedly waiting .

Edited January 24, 2016 by xenomorph555
Changing thread into a megathread (changing title)

[Pipcard]

Iran, not Israel.

[RainDreamer]

Iran, not Israel.

Yes, Iran, not Israel. Phone autocorrect follies. And I accidentally fumbled and delete my own post when editing. (who was the designer with the bright idea to have the delete post button being so big it spread across the screen, and put it at the top, even, when you have to drag said screen down to the edit text box?)

Anyway, for context, I was posting about the Iranian (but mistakenly wrote Israel) rocket has name sounds like a dragon, and our lack of rockets with fantasy dragons names.

Edited August 22, 2015 by RainDreamer

[stibbons]

Very cool. Do you have any info handy on when it will be launching?

[Kryten]

Isn't Simorgh basically a Persian dragon anyway?

Very cool. Do you have any info handy on when it will be launching?

With the way the Iranian space programme scheduling tends to work, sometime between now and doomsday. Their last launch was 'imminent' for over two years, and that was with the same rocket model as the launch before.

Edited August 22, 2015 by Kryten

[xenomorph555]

Iran, not Israel.

Eh? that's what I said...

Very cool. Do you have any info handy on when it will be launching?

Sorry, no info yet but the launch site is complete. So it could launch by the end of the year, they have a few built sats they could launch although I believe 'Tolou' has the highest priority.

Isn't Simorgh basically a Persian dragon anyway?

Phoenix actually.

[RainDreamer]

Eh? that's what I said...

That was a reply to a post I accidently deleted with my phone, where the autocorrect filled in Israel instead of Iran.

[xenomorph555]

That was a reply to a post I accidently deleted with my phone, where the autocorrect filled in Israel instead of Iran.

Oh right

[Ravenchant]

Huh, I thought Iran basically halted all spending on its space program this spring. It's nice to be proven wrong.

[xenomorph555]

Huh, I thought Iran basically halted all spending on its space program this spring. It's nice to be proven wrong.

No those rumours were false. They stemmed from a variety of reasons.

Basically in spring the space program changed management and various facilities were relocated, however this caused confusion and some news sites in Iran (who are as bad as FOX) started creating sensational headlines like "DERP HAS THE GOVERNMENT CANCELLED THE PROGRAM", some right wing politicians also attempted to use this as ammunition to target the current president.

As well as that due to the economy the budget has been shrunk but not erased, this has led to less activity making it look like they canned the program.

Finally the program was slowed by the government this year to lower tensions for the nuclear talks.

All of this put together led to western sites like WarIsBoring to believe it was canned but that is false.

As for the budget, they got around $140 million this year.

Edited August 22, 2015 by xenomorph555

[PB666]

Their economy is not doing so well, and the sanctions aren't helping.

[theend3r]

Beautiful

[Ravenchant]

Guess I'll have to release this sometime

http://i.imgur.com/AXPdevH.png?1

[xenomorph555]

Their economy is not doing so well, and the sanctions aren't helping.

Hopefully it won't be like that for too much longer.

Guess I'll have to release this sometime

http://i.imgur.com/AXPdevH.png?1

Wow, nice

[xenomorph555]

Images of the 2nd stage have come out;

[Elthy]

Any techincal details on this last piece of the first stage? It looks like it will be dropped mid flight, maybe when the athmosphere doesnt matter anymore...

[MinimumSky5]

Any techincal details on this last piece of the first stage? It looks like it will be dropped mid flight, maybe when the athmosphere doesnt matter anymore...

As that skirt has what I assume are vernier engines on it, I doubt its dropped, they likely removed it to show off the first stage engine.

[xenomorph555]

Any techincal details on this last piece of the first stage? It looks like it will be dropped mid flight, maybe when the athmosphere doesnt matter anymore...

It's just a regular engine skirt, all rockets have them. Usually they put on last during construction so that engineers can have good access to the engines to do checks, etc.

[Kryten]

I don't suppose there are any close shots of the Safir that was in the same room? As it is I can't tell if it's a flight model (which would imply another flight soon) or if they just put in a mockup of it for comparison purposes.

[xenomorph555]

I don't suppose there are any close shots of the Safir that was in the same room? As it is I can't tell if it's a flight model (which would imply another flight soon) or if they just put in a mockup of it for comparison purposes.

From what I can tell it's either an engineering model (flight model used for testing) or a flight model however I guess the former.

Here are some photos that show it a bit better;

Something to note; this a SLV assembly hall (spruced up for the president of course lolol) although I'm not sure where (could be Semnam or an R/D plant).

[Kryten]

Well it's painted, so it's probably the engineering model. Last two flight Safirs were unpainted.

[xenomorph555]

Well it's painted, so it's probably the engineering model. Last two flight Safirs were unpainted.

Actually the last launch was painted;

The 3rd 'official' launch wasn't though. Not sure about the 2-3 secret launches.

[tater]

Dropping sanctions is a de facto gift of hundreds of billions.

It's certainly a ballistic missile program, the 2 technologies are the same. The US and Soviet rocket programs started that way explicitly, and the Soviet program stayed that same way a long time (NASA, while "civilian" uses the same defense contractors, and military pilots that it always has). It is naive to make the Iranians somehow less military-minded than everyone else on the planet.

[MinimumSky5]

Because as we all know, as soon as ICBM's were developed, the world descended into war and chaos.

Even if this program was military in nature (and if it was, do you really think that the G20 would have lifted the sanctions?) Iran's leaders aren't idiots. Any attempted launch at the US or Israel (The two most likely targets) would mean that the US would try their hardest to destroy Iran, with hundreds of ICBM's, mostly nuclear. Iran knows this, and so wouldn't never try anything like it.

[Kryten]

It's certainly a ballistic missile program, the 2 technologies are the same.

That's true up to a point, but what you're seeing here is Iran moving past that point and forming two distinct industries. Simorgh is too large to be a practical weapon system, and the ballistic missile program has moved onto solid-fuel systems like Sejil.