Zohal ( fa, زحل, "

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...

") is a

VTOL A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can take off and land vertically without relying on a runway. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including helicopters as well as thrust-vectoring fixed-win ...

unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...

developed and manufactured in

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 ...

that is being described as a "home-made unmanned

flying saucer A flying saucer (also referred to as "a flying disc") is a descriptive term for a type of flying craft having a disc or saucer-shaped body, commonly used generically to refer to an anomalous flying object. The term was coined in 1947 but has g ...

". The first announcement of the Zohal came in a news release from the

Fars News Agency The Fars News Agency is a news agency in Iran managed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an armed wing loyal to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. While it describes itself as "Iran's leading independent news agency", it is widely descr ...

on March 16, 2011. In attendance at the unveiling was Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, the figurative head of Iran. The Zohal which can fly in both indoor and outdoor environments is designed and developed jointly by Farnas Aerospace Company and Iranian Aviation and Space Industries Association (IASIA). Technical specifications include an autopilot system and

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

(Global Positioning System). The utility of the Zohal is described as varied with aerial imaging provided as one example. The imaging equipment consists of two separate systems with full HD 10 mega-pixel picture quality, making the Zohal able to take and send images simultaneously.

References

Unmanned military aircraft of Iran Aircraft manufactured in Iran Vehicles introduced in 2011 {{Iran-stub