Iran says it successfully launched Noor 3 satellite into orbit

The United States has quietly acknowledged that Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard successfully put an imaging satellite into orbit this week in a launch that resembled others previously criticized by Washington as helping Tehran’s ballistic missile program. It put the satellite at over 450 kilometers (280 miles) above the Earth’s surface, which corresponds to Iranian state media reports regarding the launch. It also identified the rocket carrying the satellite as a Qased, a three-stage rocket fueled by both liquid and solid fuels first launched by the Guard in 2020 when it unveiled its up-to-then-secret space program. .