Iran says it will soon place Pars-2 satellite in orbit
Iran’s ICT minister said on Friday the country’s Pars-2 imaging satellite will soon be placed into orbit, as Tehran continues to advance its space program.
Pars-2 weighs 150 kilograms and is an upgraded version of the Pars-1 remote-sensing satellite, developed on a 100-to-150-kilogram satellite platform by the Iranian Space Research Center, according to Iranian authorities.
The satellite is equipped with two imaging payloads using different sensors: a linear color sensor with a resolution of three meters, and a two-dimensional sensor with a resolution of four meters in monochrome and eight meters in multispectral imaging.
Officials said combining images from the satellite’s payloads with software techniques would improve its resolution to better than 2.5 meters.
The announcement comes as Western governments have repeatedly raised concerns that technologies used in Iran’s satellite launch vehicles could overlap with those needed for long-range ballistic missiles.