In April, the Islamic Republic launched a military satellite into space for the first time. The launch confirmed what many experts have long suspected: that the regime’s Revolutionary Guard has been conducting a secret space program parallel to the country’s civilian one. In fact, argues Uzi Rubin, Tehran’s plans to develop military space technologies likely go back to the 1980s, and its ambitions include developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs):
The West tends to regard Iran’s space program as a minor appendix of its missile program, itself viewed by the West as far less significant than the ayatollahs’ military nuclear program. But this trivialization of Iran’s space ambitions dangerously misses its true essence. Iran’s space program is one on the cornerstones upon which the entire edifice of Iran’s strategic concept is built.
Iran aspires to leverage itself from a regional power to a regional hegemon, and thence to leadership of the Islamic world, and ultimately to the status of a global power on par with Russia and China. A precondition for achieving global power is possession of the ultimate status symbols: nuclear ICBMs backed by space-based early-warning satellites to ensure a credible second-strike capability. Simply put, the Revolutionary Guard views the “civilian” space program as a cover story for the pursuit of covert programs on global-range missile technologies.
A frank disclosure of the real mission of [Iran’s civilian space agency] was made in a 2014 television interview with General Majid Mussavi, deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s air and space force. He stated (in Persian) that “The real mission of [Iran’s] space program is technological advancement to circumvent the self-imposed limitation on missile range to 2,000km.”
The bottom line is this [that] Iran’s space program merits constant and detailed scrutiny no less than its missile program does.
Read more on Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security: https://jiss.org.il/en/rubin-irans-space-program-2/