Iran says it has successfully sent a satellite into space

Iran Saturday sent a research satellite into orbit with a rocket built by the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

The report said the Chamran-1 satellite has a weight of 60 kilograms and successfully reached in 550-kilometer (341 miles) orbit in space. It said testing space hardware and software is the main mission of the satellite.

IRNA said land stations received signals from the satellite, too.

It said the satellite-carrier rocket Qaem-100, using solid fuel, was designed and made by the Guard aerospace division. Iran says it has 13 more satellite launches in a row.

Though Iran has long planned to send satellites into orbit, this is the first launch under reformist President Masoud Pezezhkian after his hardline predecessor Ebrahim Raisi died in a May helicopter crash.

In January Iran said it successfully launched three satellites into space with a rocket.

The program is seen by the West as part of the improvement of Tehran’s ballistic missiles. The launch also comes as heightened tensions grip the wider Middle East over Israel’s continued war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, sparking fears of a regional conflict.

The United States has previously said Iran’s satellite launches defy a U.N. Security Council resolution and called on Tehran to undertake no activity involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. U.N. sanctions related to Iran’s ballistic missile program expired last October.