Iran Planning to Launch 5 New Satellites by 2021

Iran's Ministry of Communication and Information Technology hopes to launch five indigenous satellites in cooperation with the Defence Ministry by March 2021.

"The ministry will be carrying out 10 projects in the final year of the incumbent administration’s term, mainly in the space sector and development of the National Information Network. We plan to launch of five new homegrown satellites by the end of the current Iranian year," Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Iran’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, said during a radio interview on Wednesday.

Tehran has postponed a satellite launch initially slated for June in order to coordinate plans and ensure proper functioning of the satellite.

In April, Iran successfully sent into low earth orbit its first spacecraft, the military satellite, Noor (Light), allegedly designed to gather intelligence from around the Middle East.

Talking about future plans, the minister revealed that Iran will unveil a homegrown supercomputer, used for data processing to yield results in artificial intelligence systems, in February 2021. "It will be among the world's top 500 computers," he claimed.

Next week, Azari Jahromi said, Iran's largest infrastructural data centre of the National Information Network, will be unveiled. It will be used for messengers and browsers.

The minister finally said a project to launch the fifth-generation technology standard for cellular networks has begun as two locations in capital Tehran have received the 5G coverage.