Iran’s Space Launchers and Solid Missiles

Jeffrey Lewis 0:05

You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk Podcast, a podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:23

I'm Aaron Stein, the director of the Middle East Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Jeffrey 0:28

Anne is not with us because she is talking to some high school students.

Aaron 0:33

She's investing in the next generation. They called her in early, so she was supposed to be with us, but she chose high school over arms control walk.

Jeffrey 0:42

I know, I know, I know. It's probably the right choice. Not quite an emergency podcast, Aaron, but there are some doings that we want to talk about.

Aaron 0:55

Yeah. I mean, look, we were supposed to talk about this earlier in the week, but then my kid decided to get a fever and I had to go pick him up from school. So we had an abort launch. Well, somebody else should have aborted their launch. Right, right. Iran test or launch a satellite launch vehicle and get a podcast.

Is that what we're doing?

Jeffrey 1:14

Yeah, although honestly, you know, for listeners, we will talk about Iran's launch, unsuccessful launch of a satellite. But we're also going to talk about a little dog and pony show the Iranians did where they showed us a new short-range ballistic missile and a new upper stage for a space launch vehicle because we're getting all kinds of fun stuff about Iran's missile and space capabilities this month.

Aaron 1:41

Yeah, it's wonk porn at its finest. They're really giving it to us. So I think the earliest thing, let's just get the space launch out of the way. There was a space launch. They used the Samorex space launch vehicle, and it was unsuccessful because it failed to reach speeds to put the satellite in orbit.

Jeffrey 2:01

Yes, which sounds like, to me, an upper stage problem. Although I have to say they announced it pretty quickly, and they're still doing the diagnostics. They may have done them now. I haven't seen another announcement. So they knew it wasn't – Going fast enough in the right spot to stay up there. But, you know, there's a question of like what happened, which I think ends up being important because the Iranians have had a couple of failed space launches.

And this time there were reports that they had a backup satellite ready to go. But I'm not expecting a launch in the immediate near term, in part because I think they're going to take time to figure out what went wrong.

Aaron 2:43

Yeah, and what struck me about this satellite launch is that they were very open about it. And I was wondering if you think that this also fed into the one important thing that we mentioned up top is to try and make themselves look like good actors, peaceful actors. They gave a whole bunch of warning and then they gave pictures.

I think there were even videos this time of the space launch.

Jeffrey 3:03

Yeah, the Iranians weren't particularly sneaky about the whole thing. We actually have a really good track record using three meter data from planet for tipping and queuing. So as as is often the case, there were rumblings from Iranian officials that a space launch might be coming. And we were able to see using three meter imagery, the shipping containers show up at the horizontal checkout building at the Imam Khomeini building.

Spaceport near Semnon. And then we worked with Planet, which went ahead and, and, and got some high resolution images. And so the lead up was really pretty transparent. It was actually kind of crazy because we were having a big tech conference here in Monterey, where we got a bunch of tech CEOs and senior vice presidents to come down.

And we, like, they, like, It was like, you know, like you know, 75, 100 people and you know, we were like, you know, please give us your data and we'll give you use cases. And we had actually just released this as a, was a case where we said, look, we use the three meter data to monitor the site on a, on a daily basis. We saw the shipping containers show up. Planet sent a higher resolution satellite. We confirmed they were shipping containers. We think a space launch is coming. And then the Iranian minister responsible for the Space launch, tweeted on top of the NPR story like, yes, this is accurate.

We are going to launch a satellite, which I have to say was super weird, but kind of awesome.

Aaron 4:34

No, that's one thing. You have these wonderful things, you and your team, about how you judge impact. This is one of those things that you then file up to Bill Potter and say, see, this is how we judge impact in the OSINT team at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Yeah.

Jeffrey 4:52

Well, you know, one of the really interesting things about placing that story with NPR is that we're now in this weird spot where sometimes we get the news before it happens. So both this case of being able to say that a satellite launch is coming in a couple of weeks and in the North Korea case where we could see that they were going to do an engine test in a few days.

In both cases, we had done like too good of a job for our media partners who were like, well, it's not really a story until they do it. I just said, come on. Like we can see the future.

Aaron 5:31

Yeah. No, no, exactly. And especially with how people treat – and this is where we're going. Especially how people treat the satellite launches, like as a stand-in for ballistic missiles. You know, giving warning and sort of conditioning the environment, I think is an important public service.

Jeffrey 5:47

Yeah, I think so, because you want to make sure that these things are, are interpreted correctly. And, you know, at, I think the Iranians were pretty transparent about the lead up for that for that very reason. I mean, there was also that crazy day where we got a 30 centimeter image from Maxar on the same day or maybe within 24 hours of the Iranians broadcasting ground footage.

And like the Iranian broadcast, like the camera wasn't that great. And like, I think the picture from space was better. I mean, that's the future. Like that. It's totally weird. But I take your point. I think it's. Particularly for those of us who want to see a foreign policy that's a little bit more strategic and a little bit more rooted in fact and, you know, isn't subject to, you know, the whims of a deeply unbalanced group of people.

Getting information out before it happens in a clear and understandable way, I think probably results in better policy.

Aaron 7:06

Yeah, but the Iranians – I think the Iranians wanted us to see some stuff this time around. So let's talk about the wonk porn. The Simorgh is the Simorgh. We know all about it. I have a 3D model in my office. It's cool. But let's talk about the more nasty stuff that I think they should have and why I'm – I'm concerned.

Let's put it that way. I'm concerned and it's not about the Simorgh and that old stuff.

Jeffrey 7:35

Yeah, so let's... For listeners, we need to imagine two baskets of things. One basket has Iran's current space program, which is built around these liquid propellant rockets that use fairly unimpressive propellants. They are basically derivatives of North Korean missiles. And so like the Simorgh looks a lot like North Korea's space launcher because its first stage is, Is a cluster of Shahab three engines, which are basically no dongs.

And so they're both clusters of the same crappy, you know, 1980s North Korean engine. And when North Korea went ahead and built an ICBM, they didn't use that engine, right? They used a much better engine with much better propellants that results in a much more capable thing. So I am someone who thinks that North Korea's space launch program and Iran's space launch program, while all rockets are kind of rockety at some level, they are basically fundamentally not suitable for a credible missile program.

And when North Korea did it, they did it differently. Ha, the things the Iranians showed us. If they do those, that's a different kettle of fish.

Aaron 8:52

Yeah, and so they wanted us to see – I think we should talk about the solid fuel engine that they wanted us to see. So they put out some pictures, and that one went booming around these people who actually pay attention to this stuff because of what that could portend.

Jeffrey 9:09

Yeah, so the Iranians showed us two different things. They showed us a new short-range ballistic missile that we should probably talk about at the end of the podcast. But they showed us a small upper stage for a space launcher, but it was a solid propellant upper stage. And the reason this is so interesting is that, you know, in addition to the Space program, which is run by the civilian which is run by a civil, basically a civilian entity in Iran.

There has always been this other parallel program. And it was originally run by this guy, Tehrani Mohadam, who, you know, was originally he's like an IRGC guy. He was developing solid propellant missiles and When Iran – when the supreme leader imposed the 2,000-kilometer range limit, he shifted over to working on a solid propellant space launcher because he couldn't call it an ICBM.

He was killed in 2011 in an explosion that wiped out this place called Bid Gine. And we – We kind of didn't know what happened to his space program. Like, we have always thought here at CNS it was much further along than people realized, in part because we think people kind of underestimate how quickly countries are able to acquire solid propellant missile programs.

And so we had been watching this site near this place called Sharud, which has facilities for casting solid propellant motors, a big test stand, which may be a launch pad that we argue about all the time. And then the best part is there's a crater, like a mountain crater, which is called the Mountain of the Cow Garden in Farsi, which is crazy, which has test stands.

It looks like some kind of Bond villain lair. Awesome. Like out of You Never Live Twice, right? Yeah. And we got for the first time – sorry, I know I belabored at this point. But what we saw was a solid propellant upper stage, and they released video of them testing it at this site. So it's the first time we have seen this thing.

It's the first time we've gotten a picture of this site. And what it tells us is that this program to develop a big solid propellant space launcher didn't die with Mocha Dom.

Aaron 11:39

Yeah. And I should say that the Mogadam Arms Control Wong podcast episode is my favorite podcast episode of all time. And I wasn't on it. I was on paternity leave or vacation somewhere and it's you and I think Fabian and a few others. And it's the, it's my favorite. I listened to it in my house and I was just super excited.

So people should go back and read that original one. And then I think the other thing in addition to that is now that you know that the site is that you can, you guys I think have been watching it. And so like, We focus on the big flashy SLB tests or the space launch vehicle tests, the SMORC stuff, or at least the media does.

But there's a lot of testing that probably escapes sort of the level of NPR reporting. And that's not a knock on NPR. It's just like these things don't rise to the level of national news.

Jeffrey 12:25

Yeah, there are five engine test stands in that crater of increasing size. And really an engine test stand is just a big concrete block. And the weight of that block is usually four to six times the thrust of the engine so that, you know, the engine doesn't go anywhere, right? Right. And because they're being fired horizontally, they leave these big, beautiful candle flame shaped burn scars on the ground.

And what we have seen over the past couple of years is that Iran has been steadily moving from one stand to another, getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And so. We could tell that this site, which we believed was associated with the solid propellant program, right, not the liquid propellant program, was testing engines on stands that were like too big to be any of the missiles that we were currently seeing in Iran.

Aaron 13:23

Yeah, exactly, which suggests that they have plans to make the – I guess the missile or at least the engine larger.

Jeffrey 13:29

Right. And then what we got is this picture of this upper stage, which basically it kind of ends this discussion. There had been hints that the solid propellant program had continued. After Mohaddam had died, but it was always treated as secret. And now, for the first time, the Iranians released the images of the, you know, one of the stages of the space launcher, and then separately an Iranian official said, you know, as early as summer 2020, they want to go ahead and put up a satellite using a solid launcher, which, like, would be big.

You know, like, we're talking, it's a little hard to tell how big that upper stage is, but it's You know, it's a meter-ish, maybe more.

Aaron 14:17

Yeah, you wanted to – you and Fabian had some fun trying to measure that to get a good sense of the size or at least the diameter.

Jeffrey 14:25

So it's really tough right now because we've had a series of disclosures from the Iranians. There's also some video of Mohaddam before he died in 2011 showing him next to one of the engines at a test stand. But that image that was from a video and it was super warped and we like, we, we really struggled to figure out how big it was.

Like we think it's bigger than a meter and a half and probably not bigger than two meters, but like what I bet my house on it, like, nah, there's some fisheye stuff going on. And so we're doing that same thing with this thing. And this doesn't look quite that big It looks sort of more like a meter.

So maybe it's not as maybe it's not as big as as what we were expecting, but it's still like a lot bigger than anything we've we've seen in Iran to date. And that suggests to us. That we are entering this period in which we are going to see what will probably be described as a space launcher that, unlike the C-Morgue, really will represent at least a technological path toward an ICBM.

And that's going to be different.

Aaron 15:44

For me, it's much scarier. Again, because we've talked, as you said up top, the C-Morgue is just not really feasible as a... Building path to a large-scale or at least ICBM capability where this type of liquid-fueled SLV would be. You mean this type of solid-fueled SLV? Solid-fueled. I say liquid. Sorry. This type of solid-fueled thing. It would be.

That's just much more scary because it reminds me a lot of sort of how the DPRK case was Sort of evolved and was handled, at least from the policy community, and then ultimately where we ended up. And the Iranians appear to be well on the way towards achieving that type of capability, which, going back to your original point, if you want a foreign policy or security policy more grounded in, I would call it rationality, acceptance of facts, and then judging upon them, this is a terrible place to be in, particularly when you treat both as one and the same.

Jeffrey 16:48

Right. And, you know, it's interesting. I think a thing that Fabian noticed, which is very important, is this facility and the... Missiles or rockets that are being developed there are being developed by the IRGC, not by the civilian space program, right? This is probably all under the – what is it? It's the Jihad Self-Sufficiency Organization.

Aaron 17:21

Yes, which is – for people who have done any work on the nuclear program should know quite well.

Jeffrey 17:26

Yeah, and Fabian, who I just adore in so many ways, has noted you can tell this all the way from the – who makes the announcements to the IRGC logos that they have on both the rocket stage but also on some of the posters in the facility doing the winding. Yes. But down to the names. Yes. The civilian space program, they name things using pre-Islamic Persian culture names, right?

Things that are fundamentally Persian more than Islamic. And the names of everything on the – Associated with this program, they're all religious names, so you know, right, it just like, this is, you know, we have one of these really interesting cases where you know, the people who are the people who are passing themselves off as experts, there's a lot, right, are treating Iran like it's this monolithic entity, but you actually have two programs And and we while we are screaming about the civilian one.

Like no one is taking us seriously while we are trying to point out that there's this other program, like that you were screaming about the wrong thing. Like we actually had this article in the New York times in May, 2018, where we pointed out that we had seen, seen a resumption of activity at Sherwood and that we thought that their solid propellant missile program was picking up.

And people like told us we were crazy. And like, ever since then we have watched burn scar after burn scar. And now the Iranians have shown us a video of a test at the site and And the rocket stage, which, by the way, is also fancy, right? Because it's a carbon composite airframe, or casing, which means it's really light.

And it's got a flexible nozzle for thrust vector control. Two technologies that are really important for big missiles, right?

Aaron 19:42

Yeah. On the twin programs, that's a lot how their clandestine weapons program was structured, at least as we understand it. Now, of course, there's some uncertainty there, but there was sort of the overt civilian program that stuck around and muddling with centrifuges, and then there was the other side that had centrifuges and was doing the associated experiments.

So it's not exactly all that odd when Fabian was pointing this out to us privately that this would be the way that this thing could be structured. And two, I mean do we want to talk about the pictures of that carbon composite frame? At least one of them looked like it was used when they were showing it off to us.

Jeffrey 20:19

Oh, yeah. That was – they showed the video of that – of it being tested.

Aaron 20:22

Okay, okay, okay. So I missed that.

Jeffrey 20:24

And it's the first time we have ever seen a video from Charute. So we were able to identify the exact test stand. Fabian has this beautiful thing he did with David Laboon where they got – instead of using Google Earth terrain data, they took – I think it's Aster data from NASA. And they built their own 3D model of the crater.

And that turns out to give you a really beautiful terrain match. Much better than Google Earth terrain match is. So we know the exact stand it was done on. And we're now trying to work through satellite imagery to see if we can find the exact date because there's a bunch of rigging that we think we can see.

Yeah. So, yeah, like this is a real this is a real program. And it's it's really going to result in the relatively near term in a much bigger solid propellant missile might not be an ICBM right away. I mean, it kind of depends on on on what they choose to do. But like. While we are screaming about their space program.

The window on actually dealing with the possibility of a solid propellant ICBM is closing.

Aaron 21:40

I would say it's not closed. Maybe it's like it's very close to being closed. I mean we've federed this away. It's a combination of so many things. The JCPOA on one hand, and then it's screaming about stuff we shouldn't be screaming about, and then it's just not understanding the consequences of the screaming and getting rid of the JCPOA.

When they made the announcement that they were going to put up the second satellite with a solid-fueled SLV, I mean – I was just like, well, yes, but that's where you go. But we're not prepared for that. We're fundamentally not prepared for that.

Jeffrey 22:16

And it's just crazy to me because we're having this consistent discussion about like, well, maximum pressure, it's going to result in a better deal. And because we're so focused on the nuclear piece of that discussion and because the JCPOA has not completely collapsed, I do think that there is this kind of – Complacency setting in that the Iranians aren't leaving and it's going to be fine and that, you know, Trump might lose and that we're going to have more time.

And it's, it's like, yeah, but if you look at the missile side of things, time is really, really running out. Like it is really running out and they're going to call it a space launcher. And honestly, the initial one that they test, if they test it this summer may not be that great. And it may not even work.

And so, you know, I'm not one of those people who think test failures like should be all that reassuring countries figure it out. But like. We might have a little more time. But boy, you know, like. I know I keep saying, like, if you like a nuclear arm, North Korea, you're going to love walking away from the Iran nuclear deal like.

It's actually so much worse than that because the Iranians are so much better or further along than the North Koreans were back then.

Aaron 23:38

Yeah. I mean – and it also raises the point that comes up oftentimes in the criticism of the JCPOA is that it didn't deal with ballistic missiles. And it is our own inability to grapple with what type of missiles or rockets we would want Iran to actually be invested in. So like – But encouraging them to succeed with the Simorgh, in a way, we should be rooting for the Simorgh to do really, really well.

You know what I mean?

Jeffrey 24:10

I certainly am. Yes.

Aaron 24:12

So like when they fire off a Simorgh, I'm not sitting there hoping it crashes to earth in sort of a fiery snowball and no – Yeah, because you know who's real happy about that?

Jeffrey 24:21

The dudes in the green baseball caps.

Aaron 24:23

Exactly. So you're like – No. Like, how can we help you use the liquid stuff? That stuff's great. Do you want to put little CubeSats up? We got you. You got it. You can do it yourself. Just that you don't need a solid fuel to do that.

Jeffrey 24:35

I met a bunch of small tech companies. We can hook you up with launches. Exactly. And so, like, it's like not screaming bloody murder over the wrong stuff.

Aaron 24:45

And that's where we're at. I don't know. We always say the same. I find this to be so –

Jeffrey 25:06

And, yeah, actually the head of the IRGC Aerospace Force, Fabian, found a great clip of him whining about that fact because basically – He had whatever his plans were for the force, and the Supreme Leader was like, yeah, I don't care what your plans are. I want you to focus on precision. And so while we are like – like I get why we're annoyed at their growing military capability at a regional basis.

Like we need to be focused on stopping the bleeding and not letting that capability scale to greater ranges. And instead, like, we're just screaming, like, well, no, you can't have any missiles at all. And it's like, that's a great policy for 1978. You know. I guess we should close briefly by talking about the other thing that showed up, which was a short-range ballistic missile.

This was kind of fun. It's also a carbon composite motor casing. The... It it's a 500 kilometer range missile called the Rod. I can't. It means thunder. I can't. In true arms control wonk fashion, I can't pronounce anything.

Aaron 26:25

Farsi and Persian. This is beyond both of us.

Jeffrey 26:27

Yeah, it. And it's interesting mostly because it seems to – because it goes 500 kilometers, but it seems to be much, much, much smaller than the Fatah 110, their existing 300-kilometer range short-range ballistic missile. And we did a really cool thing. It's a technique we're experimenting with. It's hard when you don't have like a full person in an image.

But you know how the body's human proportions work out? Like you're typically about seven and a half heads tall.

Aaron 27:03

Yeah.

Jeffrey 27:05

And your – the distance between like your elbow and your wrist is the same distance as your head?

Aaron 27:15

I did not know that, but sure. Now I'm doing it in my office.

Jeffrey 27:19

And there's also one that's – I think it's two lengths from your like belly button to your knee. I can't remember. We have a chart there. So now we have a person next to a missile. Instead of trying to estimate their height, we break their body part into all those little things and average them.

Aaron 27:39

That's cool.

Jeffrey 27:40

Yeah. It's unclear whether this is really going to be all that productive. But the upshot is using traditional methods and then kind of experimenting with some of these new methods, we're finding that this thing is really small. And the Iranians said it was like half the weight and maybe half the cost. And so this is a really inexpensive and apparently capable 500-kilometer range missile, which if you draw range rings around Iran, I think is going to get exported.

And we know they're accurate. And we have seen in graphic detail the accuracy of those things. And so while I would like Iran to disarm, I think that's not a thing that's likely to happen in the near term. And so if we're thinking about stopping the bleeding, this 2,000-kilometer range limit is really worth investing in because I don't think there's anything useful we can do below that range limit.

I think that is just a lost cause.

Aaron 28:41

No, it can get tougher, I think.

Jeffrey 28:44

The other question is like what the hell does that mean for the MTCR, right? Because we now have an MTCR in which China is kind of voluntarily adhering, although we don't actually think they are. Turkey. Yeah, and Saudi Arabia. So, you know, like I would say the Chinese are out of the MTCR, although I understand it's more complicated than that.

And the Iranians and the North Koreans are certainly out of the MTCR. That ain't much of a supplier's cartel if those three countries aren't in.

Aaron 29:13

It's updating old assumptions to get away from the idea that technological overmatch is something that we can do to control supply lines or to use as means of coercion. Countries have – the barriers to entry for these types of systems has decreased and countries are investing appropriately to develop themselves. Iran is one such country. They have a long and dedicated missile program, I guess a rocket program too, and it is beginning to show considerable signs of progress.

Yeah.

Jeffrey 29:49

So I would suggest we find a way to learn to love the Iranian space launch program. The old crappy one. As much as possible. Well, frankly, I think – I strongly suspect, you know, it, I strongly suspect that they are going to go ahead with that solid propellant space launch program. We should try to stop it. Like, we should try to cut some kind of deal to stop it.

But even if we can't, it just makes the JCPOA all that much more important. Because if Iran chooses to build nuclear weapons, which you and I think that they can, I don't believe developing an ICBM is going to be a serious challenge for them. And so if they have that level of technology, like cut the f***ing deal.

Aaron 30:48

Then again, we just did and we walked away. We did. We walked away and people say we're winning. But OK. Are you tired of winning yet, Aaron?

Jeffrey 30:58

I never get tired of winning.

Aaron 31:00

You have to go to a class in six minutes. You have young minds just like Anne Pellegrino is shaping young minds at the high school level.

Jeffrey 31:07

Yeah, I'm going to shape slightly older minds that have been damaged by heavy amounts of alcohol consumption, so it'll be more interesting.

Aaron 31:16

What's Wednesday night? Is Wednesday night the old mucky duck? I can't remember what you call it now.

Jeffrey 31:22

I think it's the Bull and Bear. Now, no, I actually, I have, I have I found out we were, our students were having trivia night at the, at the Mucky Dock, aka the Bull and Bear, and I, I explained to them the number of stabbings and assaults, and I hope that they have moved it. No, I just mean, you know, they're, they're older than high school students who are still fresh and developing.

Aaron 31:44

Here I am poisoning the minds further. OK. Off the rails. So here I'll plug the show. So if you enjoy this podcast, head on over to Patreon.com slash ACW podcast. $3 a month if you're a student, $5 a month if you are not. You can join our Slack channel where – I think the last podcast was with Jeffrey talking to one of our Slack members about really cool open source stuff on the – The shoot down, the Iranian accidental shoot down of a civilian airliner.

So, yeah, they do really good stuff in there and worthy of podcasts. So with that, Jeffrey, go, go, go teach. And thanks, everybody, for listening.

Jeffrey 32:17

That was a pleasure, Aaron.