Iran hails successful launch of satellite rocket

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jDJTHPpLUYb3WUzzphdkkrcO9HPA ^

[jhpigott]

TEHRAN — Iran hailed the successful launch of a home-built satellite on Wednesday amid Western concerns it is using its nuclear and space industries to develop atomic and ballistic weapons.

The Kavoshgar 3 (Explorer) rocket was carrying an "experimental capsule", state-owned Al-Alam television reported.

State television's website said it was carrying "live animals" -- a rat, turtles and worms, the first such experiment by Iran in space technology.

"The capsule has the ability to send back empirical data," the website said.

State television showed footage of the rocket being fired from a desert launchpad leaving behind a thick plume of smoke.

A few minutes later the grainy images showed the capsule detaching from the rocket and spinning in orbit.

State television also carried pictures of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiling another home-built rocket for satellite launches dubbed the Simorgh (Phoenix).

The milk-bottle shaped rocket, emblazoned in blue with the words "Satellite Carrier Simorgh," is equipped to carry a 100-kilogramme (220-pound) satellite 500 kilometres (310 miles) into orbit, the television report said.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

What exactly does EMP destroy?

Jumping in here.....

I know that normal commercial chips as found in PCs cannot handle radiation aboard spacecraft.....

I would suppose that EMP would deliver some type of radiation similar to that encountered by satellites...

I believe that some of the electrical equipment found in power networks is also impacted by major coronal outbursts from the Sun....

Found this:

The Effects of Nuclear Weapons - EMP radiation from nuclear space bursts in 1962

Above: USSR Test ‘184’ on 22 October 1962, ‘Operation K’ (ABM System A proof tests) 300-kt burst at 290-km altitude near Dzhezkazgan. Prompt gamma ray-produced EMP induced a current of 2,500 amps measured by spark gaps in a 570-km stretch of 500 ohm impedance overhead telephone line to Zharyq, blowing all the protective fuses. The late-time MHD-EMP was of low enough frequency to enable it to penetrate the 90 cm into the ground, overloading a shallow buried lead and steel tape-protected 1,000-km long power cable between Aqmola and Almaty, firing circuit breakers and setting the Karaganda power plant on fire.

More at the link

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi

[Drill Thrawl]

“One Second After”

http://www.onesecondafter.com/

[Enchante]

re: “home built satellite”

so now Ahm-a-whackjob is tinkering in his basement on the Iranian satellites? That must be where the rat, turtles, and worms came from.....

seriously, though, if Iran really can reach 300+ miles up (big “if” - has this claim been verified???) then they are attaining inter-continental potential, I would think (not that I have any expertise, but once they can reach an orbit then I’d think that ICBM status is near??)

[Drill Thrawl]

Could be. But it would be cheaper to put it on a container ship and launch it from the Gulf of Mexico.

Either way we lack any sort of leadership that "has a pair" so we are screwed. Might be a good time to invest in buggy whips.

[BigEdLB]

Can’t send up THAT RAT.... Teleprompters are too heavy for the payload...

[Marine_Uncle]

Iran is approaching a level where the USA was back in the early sixties by the looks of it.

[chuck_the_tv_out]

“Dearreader went into space today & prayed the perfect golf game on moon.”

“this is CNN.”

[chuck_the_tv_out]

[rxsid]

"Here's a little something to ponder: a Wall Street Journal article written just a couple of weeks after the 2008 election: "What a Single Nuclear Warhead Could Do"

It would require the Iranians to be able to produce a warhead as sophisticated as we expect the Russians or the Chinese to possess. "

Not true, according to this report:

U.S. Intel: Iran Plans Nuclear Strike on U.S.
Tuesday, 29 Jul 2008 09:00 AM

Iran has carried out missile tests for what could be a plan for a nuclear strike on the United States, the head of a national security panel has warned.

In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and in remarks to a private conference on missile defense over the weekend hosted by the Claremont Institute, Dr. William Graham warned that the U.S. intelligence community “doesn’t have a story” to explain the recent Iranian tests.

One group of tests that troubled Graham, the former White House science adviser under President Ronald Reagan, were successful efforts to launch a Scud missile from a platform in the Caspian Sea.

“They’ve got [test] ranges in Iran which are more than long enough to handle Scud launches and even Shahab-3 launches,” Dr. Graham said. “Why would they be launching from the surface of the Caspian Sea? They obviously have not explained that to us.”

Another troubling group of tests involved Shahab-3 launches where the Iranians "detonated the warhead near apogee, not over the target area where the thing would eventually land, but at altitude,” Graham said. “Why would they do that?”

Graham chairs the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, a blue-ribbon panel established by Congress in 2001.

The commission examined the Iranian tests “and without too much effort connected the dots,” even though the U.S. intelligence community previously had failed to do so, Graham said.

“The only plausible explanation we can find is that the Iranians are figuring out how to launch a missile from a ship and get it up to altitude and then detonate it,” he said. “And that’s exactly what you would do if you had a nuclear weapon on a Scud or a Shahab-3 or other missile, and you wanted to explode it over the United States.”

The commission warned in a report issued in April that the United States was at risk of a sneak nuclear attack by a rogue nation or a terrorist group designed to take out our nation’s critical infrastructure.

"If even a crude nuclear weapon were detonated anywhere between 40 kilometers to 400 kilometers above the earth, in a split-second it would generate an electro-magnetic pulse [EMP] that would cripple military and civilian communications, power, transportation, water, food, and other infrastructure," the report warned.

While not causing immediate civilian casualties, the near-term impact on U.S. society would dwarf the damage of a direct nuclear strike on a U.S. city.

More: http://newsmax.com/Newsfront/iran-nuclear-plan/2008/07/29/id/324724

[Marine_Uncle]

ROLF!

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Ernest.

amid Western concerns it is using its nuclear and space industries to develop atomic and ballistic weapons.

[sheik yerbouty]

I would have thought that the little lemur would have preferred using gerbils..

[dragnet2]

Think about this scenario: An ordinary-looking freighter ship heading toward New York or Los Angeles or D.C.?