''Omid'' ( fa, امید, meaning "Hope") was

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

's first domestically made

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...

. Omid was a data-processing satellite for research and telecommunications; Iran's state television reported that it was successfully launched on 2 February 2009. After being launched by an Iranian-made

carrier rocket A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket designed to carry a payload (spacecraft or satellites) from the Earth's surface to outer space. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pads, supported by a launch control center and syste ...

, Safir 1, the satellite was placed into a

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never m ...

. The launch, which coincided with the 30th anniversary of the

Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dyna ...

and was supervised by

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ( fa, محمود احمدی‌نژاد, Mahmūd Ahmadīnežād ), born Mahmoud Sabbaghian ( fa, محمود صباغیان, Mahmoud Sabbāghyān, 28 October 1956),

, was also verified by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

the following day as a success. Its

Satellite Catalog Number The Satellite Catalog Number (SATCAT, also known as NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense) Catalog Number, NORAD ID, USSPACECOM object number or simply catalog number, among similar variants) is a sequential nine-digit number assigned by the Un ...

USSPACECOM United States Space Command (USSPACECOM or SPACECOM) is a unified combatant command of the United States Department of Defense, responsible for military operations in outer space, specifically all operations 100 kilometers (62 miles) and grea ...

object number is 33506. Ahmadinejad said the satellite was launched to spread "

monotheism Monotheism is the belief that there is only one deity, an all-supreme being that is universally referred to as God. Cross, F.L.; Livingstone, E.A., eds. (1974). "Monotheism". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxfo ...

, peace and justice" in the world. The ''Tehran Times'' reported that "Iran has said it wants to put its own satellites into orbit to monitor natural disasters in the earthquake-prone nation and improve its telecommunications." Foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the satellite was launched to "meet the needs of the country" and is "purely for peaceful purposes". Since there was very little encryption on the satellite, data could be collected and read by citizens. Omid had the shape of a cube with mass of . Sources in the Iranian Space Agency say the satellite's sole payload was a

store and forward Store and forward is a telecommunications technique in which information is sent to an intermediate station where it is kept and sent at a later time to the final destination or to another intermediate station. The intermediate station, or node in ...

telecommunication capability. The launch of Omid makes Iran the ninth country to develop an indigenous satellite launch capability.

Specifications

* Store and Forward Telecommunication Satellite * Dimensions: 40 cm × 40 cm × 40 cm * Weight: 27 kg * Thermal Control: Passive * Frequency Band: UHF * Nodal Period: 90.7 minutes * Inclination: 55.71° * Apogee: 381.2 km * Perigee: 245.5 km

Previous Iranian satellites

Omid was the second Iranian satellite to be placed into orbit. A previous Iranian satellite,

Sina-1 ''Sina-1'' ( fa, سینا ۱) is the first Iranian artificial satellite, launched at 6:52 UTC October 28, 2005 on board a Cosmos-3M Russian launch vehicle from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. The rocket was also carrying a Russian military Mozhayets-5 ...

, was built and launched for Iran by Russia in 2005.

Test launch

Speaking at the opening of a new space centre on 4 February 2008, President Ahmadinejad announced that ''Omid'' would be launched in "the near future". On 17 August 2008, Iranian officials reported that a test of the satellite carrier was performed, and footage was broadcast of the launch of the Safir rocket in darkness. According to an American official, "The vehicle failed shortly after liftoff and in no way reached its intended position."

Orbit

The satellite was launched southeast over the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...

to avoid overflying neighboring countries and was placed into an orbit with an

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Ea ...

of 55.5 degrees, with a perigee of 246 km, an apogee of 377 km, and a period of 90.76 minutes.

End of mission

Omid was reported to have successfully completed its mission without any problems. It completed more than 700 orbits over seven weeks. According to U.S. Strategic Command, the Omid satellite reentered Earth's atmosphere on 25 April 2009, during an 8-hour window centered on 0342 UT. The most likely reentry location was over the south Atlantic Ocean approximately east of Buenos Aires, Argentina. No sightings were reported. The rocket body from the launch, which had also entered orbit, reentered the atmosphere 31 May 2009.

Further launches

Iran launched

Rasad 1 Rasad-1 ( fa, رصد, meaning ''Observation'') was an Iranian satellite which was launched in 2011. The third Iranian satellite, and the second to be launched successfully using an indigenous rocket, Rasad-1 was Iran's first imaging satellite. L ...

on 15 June 2011 which orbited for three weeks.

References

External links

Official Website

Radio observations and other details of the Omid Mission

Video of Iran's first domestic satellite launch

pictures of the opening of Iran's first space system
a
mehrnews.com

Real Time OMID Satellite Tracking
{{Orbital launches in 2009 2009 in Iran Satellites of Iran Spacecraft launched in 2009 Spacecraft which reentered in 2009