Simorgh (rocket)


Simorgh, also called Safir-2, is an Iranian expendable small-capacity orbital space launch vehicle,· which was originally scheduled to make its maiden flight in 2010. The project was unveiled by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on 3 February 2010, as part of celebrations of the first anniversary of the launch of Omid, the first indigenously-launched Iranian satellite.

Overview

The Simorgh rocket is long, and has a launch mass of. Its first stage is powered by four main engines, each generating up to of thrust, plus a fifth engine used for attitude control, providing an additional. At liftoff, these engines generate a total of thrust. Simorgh was designed to place a payload into a low Earth orbit. According to ISNA the engine could be used in future rockets capable of carrying satellites into orbits.·

History

The first flight of the Simorgh rocket was planned to carry Toloo, an experimental imaging satellite. Further launches are expected to carry Mesbah-2 and AUT-SAT. In November 2011, Iran announced that the first flight of Simorgh carrying the Toloo satellite would occur in 2012 from the new Semnan spaceport. Eventually Simorgh flew for the first time on April 19, 2016, for a suborbital test flight whose outcome has not been published. The Toloo satellite was then scheduled for launch in early 2017, according to Head of the Iranian Space Research Center Manouchehr Manteqi, but that launch failed to materialize. A second test launch occurred on 27 July 2017, and failed to reach orbit as the second stage only burned for 20 seconds. The third launch, conducted on 15 January 2019, also failed to reach orbit, due to a malfunction of the third stage.

Launch history

Flight No.Date & Time PayloadTypeOutcomeRemarks
119 April 2016No PayloadSimorghSub-orbital test flight
227 July 2017No PayloadSimorghTest flight; second stage failed
315 January 2019Payam SimorghThird stage failed
49 February 2020
15:45		Zafar-1SimorghSatellite fails to reach orbit