<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched a research satellite today, a minister said, putting it into a higher orbit in a new milestone for its aerospace programme that has faced western criticism.</b></span><br></div><div><br></div><div>The US has repeatedly warned Iran against such launches, saying the same technology can be used for ballistic missiles, including ones designed to deliver a nuclear warhead.</div><div><br></div><div>The Islamic republic says its satellite and rocket launches are only for civil or defence purposes, denying any ambition to develop a nuclear weapons capability.</div><div><br></div><div>“The Soraya satellite of the Iranian Space Organisation … was successfully launched with the Ghaem-100 satellite carrier of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” the official Irna news agency said.</div><div><br></div><div>“This is the first time that Iran has successfully placed a satellite in orbits higher than 500km,” Irna said.</div><div><br></div><div>The news agency cited telecommunications minister Issa Zarepour as saying that the satellite, which weighs about 50kg, was put in orbit 750km above Earth.</div><div><br></div><div>The Ghaem-100 carrier rocket is manufactured by the aerospace organisation of the powerful Revolutionary Guards.</div><div><br></div><div>It is the country’s first three-stage solid-fuel satellite launcher.</div><div><br></div><div>While Tehran has struggled with several satellite launch failures in the past, the successful launch of its first military satellite Nour-1, into orbit in April 2020, drew a sharp rebuke from the US.</div><div><br></div><div>Other western governments have voiced similar concerns about Iran’s aerospace programme.</div><div><br></div><div>Tehran has been under crippling US sanctions since Washington’s 2018 withdrawal from a landmark nuclear deal which granted Iran sanctions relief in return for curbs on its nuclear activities, designed to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon. - AFP&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>