Article Posted on : - Jun 16, 2011

TEHRAN (BNS): After a delay of almost a year, Iran on Wednesday successfully placed in orbit a home-built Earth observation satellite.

The Rasad 1 (Observation 1) satellite, originally scheduled to be launched in August 2010, was launched by Iran's Safir rocket which placed it into an orbit 260 kilometres above the Earth.

The satellite, weighing 15.3-kilogram, will revolve around the Earth 15 times every 24 hours, the Press TV reported. Though a micro-satellite, Rasad-1 has all features of a big satellite, it said.

The lifetime of the satellite would be two months, media reports said.

The satellite has been designed to take images of the Earth to monitor crops, track flooding, earthquake and other natural disasters. Equipped with solar panels, the spacecraft will use solar power to operate.

This is the second time that Iran has put in orbit an indigenously-build satellite.

The country had launched its first indigenously-built satellite ‘Omid’ (Hope) using a domestic rocket in February, 2009.

The satellite was designed for gathering information and testing equipment. It completed the mission after staying in orbit for over a month.