Iran wants a communications satellite
June 22, 2016
By Chris Forrester
Iran Space Organisation, according to the local MEHR news agency, says it will place its own satellites into geostationary orbit by 2025.
Mohammad Homayoun Sadr, deputy director of Iran Space Organization, said that the country was targeting two projects. The first would be high-resolution imaging, and the second would be for satellite tele-communications.
Currently there is plenty of commercial satellite coverage over the Iran (and Iraq and the rest of the MENA/Asia regions) including YahSat, Arabsat, SES, Eutelsat and others.
However, there have been allegations of frequent satellite jamming out from the region and it is known that Iranian authorities have frequently banned – and confiscated – satellite dishes from the country. In January 2015 in a highly publicised event Tehran police destroyed some 6000 dishes in a local football stadium by using a tank to drive over the equipment.
Last July an Iranian cleric warned that satellite TV was more dangerous than nuclear bombs. Ali Jannati, the Minister of Islamic Culture and Guidance, acknowledged that the regime’s efforts to prevent use of satellite TVs have failed. He said: “Wherever we collect the satellite dishes from rooftops, two days later the dishes are returned. It seems that we only create business for the dish installers.”