WANA (Jul 25) – On Friday, July 25, Iran’s Nahid-2 research and telecommunications satellite was successfully launched into space aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East.

 

Nahid-2, developed by the Iranian Space Research Institute (ISRI) under the commission of the Iranian Space Agency (ISA), is a low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite weighing approximately 110 kilograms. The ISRI, as the scientific and technical arm of the ISA, was responsible for the satellite’s full design and development.

 

The launch, which had been repeatedly delayed since its initial announcement in 2022, was part of a multi-satellite mission that deployed 20 satellites in total—including Russia’s primary Ionosfera-M3 and Ionosfera-M4 satellites, alongside 18 secondary payloads from various countries, including Iran.

 

One notable detail was the presence of the logos of the Iranian Space Agency and the Iranian Space Research Institute on the body of the Soyuz rocket, symbolizing Iran’s participation in an international space mission alongside other nations. The Soyuz launcher is known for its high reliability, which has made it a preferred vehicle for Iran’s recent satellite launches.

 

Previous Iranian satellites launched aboard the Soyuz include Khayyam, Pars-1, and privately developed satellites such as Kosar and Hodhod, all of which successfully reached orbit.

 

Nahid-2’s primary mission is to test and validate advanced Iranian space technologies in orbit, particularly in the field of telecommunications. The satellite’s deployment into LEO marks a strategic milestone in Iran’s long-term goal of building a domestic satellite communications infrastructure, expanding toward future GEO (geostationary) capabilities.

According to the head of the Iranian Space Agency, a second model of the Nahid-2 satellite has already been built and is scheduled to be launched soon using a domestically manufactured Iranian launch vehicle. This move marks a shift toward greater self-reliance in orbital deployment and is part of Iran’s broader effort to indigenize its space infrastructure.

 

Meanwhile, the next-generation Nahid-3 satellite—designed with broader bandwidth and enhanced communication capabilities—is currently in the design and development phase. Notably, Nahid-2 is the first Iranian satellite to test communication in the Ku-band frequency range, a key enabler for broadband satellite services.

 

The success of this in-orbit test is a stepping stone toward Iran’s strategic objective of deploying operational telecommunications satellites—both in LEO constellations and in geostationary orbits. The future development roadmap also includes mastering communication technologies in higher frequency bands such as Q and Ka, which are essential for high-throughput satellite systems. Although these technologies have existed in Iran at the lab level, Nahid-2 represents the country’s first effort to test them in space under real operational conditions.