In an interview with Tasnim, Brigadier General Ali Jafarabadi highlighted the IRGC’s success in launching the Noor-1 satellite into space, saying the satellite is working normally and has turned into a “real space laboratory” for Iran.
He said the homegrown satellite has been utilized to track the Iranian oil tankers that recently carried fuel to Venezuela.
“In the Atlantic Ocean, where access (to ships) is normally more difficult, monitoring the position of the oil tankers and the situation in their surroundings was put on the agenda of the Noor satellite and was accomplished,” the commander added.
Dismissing speculation that the Iranian satellite has gone dead, the commander said, “In the first days, the auxiliary and secondary signals from the satellite were turned on across the world and everybody could receive them, but later, we restricted the signals to our own country’s space in order to save the power consumption.”
The general said Iran is going to let the satellite transmit signals all over the globe for all countries once or twice a week.
On April 28, IRGC Aerospace Division Commander Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh said that the country had received signals from Noor-1 satellite and that it plans to launch a future satellite in a higher orbit. The satellite was placed into the orbit 425 kilometers above Earth’s surface.
The Noor-1 is Iran’s first multi-purpose satellite with application in the defense industry among other areas. It was launched by Qassed, the country’s first three-stage satellite launcher.
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