February 10, 2020 8:24 am

Iranian State Television reported on Sunday that the country launched an Iranian built satellite named Zafar 1 into space. The satellite, however, did not manage to make orbit and crashed back to earth without having enough speed to breach the earth’s atmosphere.

“Stage-1 and stage-2 motors of the carrier functioned properly and the satellite was successfully detached from its carrier, but at the end of its path it did not reach the required speed for being put in the orbit,” a Defense Ministry space program spokesman by the name of Ahmad Hosseini told state TV.

According to the Associated Press, “Sunday’s failure came after two failed launches of the Payam and Doosti satellites last year, as well as a launchpad rocket explosion in August. A separate fire at the Imam Khomeini Space Center in February 2019 also killed three researchers, authorities said at the time.”

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu responded to the announcement of the failed attempt by Iran and said: “We were told today that Iran again failed in their attempt to launch a satellite into space. They have also failed in transferring weapons to Syria and Lebanon. That is because we are always operating there, including nowadays.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)