Iran’s Satellite and the IRGC Space Program

Jeffrey Lewis 0:06

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's at a pediatrician's appointment, and Anne is doing some Anne stuff. But fear not, because we have Fabian Hinz under a blanket to talk to us.

Fabian Hinz 0:34

Hey there. I know it looks very ridiculous.

Jeffrey 0:38

Well, listeners are not going to be able to see how ridiculous you look, but what they will hear is the sound of your voice without the echo of your room. The sacrifices that we are all making in order to be able to pod under shelter in place. I was under a blanket for the podcast we did with Decker Eveleth.

Oh, nice.

Fabian 0:58

I would get all sweaty and then I'd have to take it off and cool off. I mean, it's the spirit of Juche and self-sufficiency jihad. We don't have the expensive equipment, but we're doing it nevertheless.

Jeffrey 1:09

Yeah, we're doing what we can do. So yeah, speaking of the, what is it, the Jihad Self-Sufficiency Organization?

Fabian 1:17

So officially, it's apparently called the Research and Self-Sufficiency Jihad Organization of the IRGC.

Jeffrey 1:25

Okay, they put a satellite up in space.

Fabian 1:28

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. We've been waiting for this moment for quite a while and it's finally arrived.

Jeffrey 1:34

We really have. So for listeners, Fabian and I have actually a book project underway to write a history of Iran's space program. And the thing about Iran is that there are two space programs. And of those two space programs, there's the civilian space program, which I like, and then there's the IRGC space program, which is your jam, because it used to be headed by your boy.

Fabian 2:01

Yes. Yes, his spirit lives on. His program lives on. We now have the confirmation, the final one.

Jeffrey 2:08

Yep. So we, Fabian and I, are going to have a conversation about not really just what Iran launched, although Fabian and I and... Michael Dutzman and John of McDowell and George Herbert. Oh, and Ferens, I should say. Have all been fussing around with trying to understand what the Iranians put up. But I also wanted to focus on the program itself and all the stuff that led up to this.

Because what I think is most interesting is that you and I were not surprised by this.

Fabian 2:42

No.

Jeffrey 2:42

We've been waiting for this for a long time. Yes. But when we... Put the first article on the IRGC space program and its presence at the facility at Sherwood into the New York Times. People were like, kind of like, eh.

Fabian 3:04

Yeah, remember that. It was a bit controversial. I mean, it's funny because it's so typical of the whole way we deal with Iran. We have this thing, which is the civilian space program, the published space program, and we obsess about it. And there are people saying, oh, it's no big deal. It's completely civilian. And the other saying, oh, no, it's just a complex ICBM program.

And because they're so obsessed with that discussion, they missed their second program. That's what I find interesting about the whole thing.

Jeffrey 3:29

Yeah, well, I mean, it's a little bit like the lead up to the Iraq war where we're like freaked out about aluminum tubes and the prospect that the Iraqis are building nuclear weapons. And like literally right across the border, the Iranians are digging two giant underground facilities to house thousands of centrifuges made from aluminum tubes. And it's like, you guys, you're wrong, but you're not wrong because it, right?

Fabian 3:58

And on the other side of the border, you have a secret reactor being built, yeah.

Jeffrey 4:02

Right. Right. Yes. You invade one country not having a secret nuclear weapons program. Yeah. If you had invaded a Middle Eastern country at random, you probably could not have been further off the mark. Yeah. So, I mean, I kind of have the same feeling where, you know, we have these constant conversations where people are looking at Iran's civilian space program and they're freaking out.

And, you know... The reality is, is there's a whole separate space program. But I think people really struggle to understand this idea that a single country with how many million people live in Iran?

Fabian 4:35

80 to 90. I would have to look it up what it currently is.

Jeffrey 4:40

Yeah, like the idea that like among 80 to 90 million people, there might actually be different factions or groups seems to like really elude people.

Fabian 4:49

Yeah, it's pretty interesting. I mean, you wouldn't really have had a separate program without the figure of Mogadam and his really cozy relationship with the Supreme Leader. So with him just being able to do that stuff. And it's also fascinating if you look at the reason behind them having this separate development program. So there are some hints that Mogadam was very unhappy with bureaucracy.

Very unhappy with the large organization that has become Iran's missile program. And I always have the feeling he wanted to replicate his youth basically in the Iran-Iraq war, where you have a small team, super dedicated, super versatile, and they're doing everything on the cheap. And I have the feeling he wanted to do the missile or rocket development as well.

Jeffrey 5:29

Yeah, I want to ask you about that because I think there are two things that I want to talk about in terms of how we get to where we are today. I mean, one is who Mogadam was and how he came out of their mainline missile program and ended up in this thing. But then the second piece, which to me is really interesting, and you played a really important role in this, When the facility at Sherwood was unveiled, you know, you're really the person who was able to work out that it wasn't just another space launch facility, that it was a space launch facility from a different organizational entity, which I think we take for granted now.

Fabian 6:07

Yeah.

Jeffrey 6:08

But like at the time people didn't get right. So, Mohandam had like a role. So when Iran started getting nuclear weapons, geez, when Iran started getting missiles in the 1980s, Mohaddam had some role in that, but like, actually, like, this is your... I mean, we tease you about how much you loved him. I love him a lot. do you have a Mohaddam waifu pillow you can snuggle with? Or not yet? One would that be like a good Christmas gift? So actually, I looked it up, and you can have like small plush dolls custom tailors.

Fabian 6:43

But I couldn't decide whether I actually want Mogadam or Hojizo there. So I'm having like these two competing parallel obsessions, which kind of mirror the parallel organizational structure of the rain space program. And I can't decide which one I want to have a plush dog on.

Jeffrey 6:59

Right. But so like, what was he doing in the 80s?

Fabian 7:01

So when, yeah, sorry. Tehrani Mogadam was basically... He entered the IRGC very early, and he was just a mortar operator. So he was working in artillery, nothing really special. But he was quite proactive, if you want to say so. So he was the first guy to organize a coherent mortar fire support unit. And then he was the guy organizing the IRGC's artillery unit, because in the beginning, the IRGC was just a ramshackle militia, mostly for regime survival, which was then thrust into counterinsurgency war with Iran.

So when the Iranians decided to use ballistic missiles against Iraq, they needed someone to lead the group. And that became Tehrani Moghadam. So he was the guy who first went to Syria for training, who supervised the first Scott launches and then became the founder of Iran's missile program.

Jeffrey 7:52

Yeah, and I mean, there's now, flash forward, right? So he's in that program. And then you think at some point, Because he has this kind of iconoclastic or strange nature that he wants to do something a little bit different. So while Iran is developing all these liquid propellant missiles that are basically derivations of Scuds and Nodongs supplied by, I guess, did the Libyans actually ever end up supplying them anything?

Or did they give them anything?

Fabian 8:26

In the 80s?

Jeffrey 8:27

Yeah.

Fabian 8:28

Yeah, so basically the whole... Initially Iranian missile program was Libyan. The first launchers, the first scouts, the first scouts inside Iran were actually launched by Libyan crew. So launch order would come from the Iranians, but the launch would be done by the Libyans. But then Libyans left like a little bit later and the Iranians took over and the North Koreans

Jeffrey 8:47

So just the point is this whole program was a liquid-fueled program that was based around the Scud, starting with the Libyans, then supported by the North Koreans. And he's like, for whatever reason, do we really know why he is like, no, I'm out. I want to go to solid propellant missiles.

Fabian 9:05

So the interesting thing is like, it's a bit murky. We don't have enough information, but it seems like there's a very, very Tight relationship between the operational part of Iran's missile force and the developmental part. So already in the 80s you have these first artillery rockets that are being developed like stuff like the Zilzal, the Nauzeot and you already have reports that he is supervising some of the efforts even though he's like the guy actually leading the operational unit in the field as well.

So you have a very very strong relationship between the engineers and the guys actually firing the missiles and he seems to supervise a lot of the production efforts. Well, especially after the Iran-Iraq war ends. But the thing that then happens is in the early 2000s, he starts to do his own thing. So there are all these reports saying he was frustrated.

He wanted to have a small, nimble organization. And that's what he founded the self-sufficiency jihad organization for, apparently. It might have existed before, but people, like Iranian sources say, he became the first president. So it seems likely it was founded for that particular purpose. In the mid-2000s, at one point, probably 2005, And he does this thing. And the interesting thing is that you have Iran introducing the 2,000 kilometer range limit at some point in the early 2000s, canceling the development of the Shahab-4.

And then Tehran-e-Moghadam is saying, we don't want our technological development to be cut. I now want to work on space flight using that technology.

Jeffrey 10:34

Yeah, so I mean, to me, that's kind of what I, the big thing I take away from all of this, which is that, you know, you have this, Where you have these different competing factions and you have a person who really wants Iran to develop very long range missiles. And then you have this political edict come down that says, no, we're not interested in missiles with ranges more than 2,000 kilometers.

And so, you know, like, he's like, okay, so it's a space program then.

Fabian 11:03

Yeah, it's fascinating. So there's this great interview with this daughter, and this daughter says, like, oh, my father was always saying, we have to be like North Korea. We have to become powerful like them. Now America can do a damn thing with North Korea. We have to do the same. And there are all these other interviews where people are saying he was so ambitious, the Supreme Leader had to restrain him and say, ah, you know, now it's not the right time for that project.

Even though it's a good project, we will do something else. So it sounds a lot like me, like this guy really wanted to go full North Korea and what they ended up with the space program was some sort of compromise where you do long range missile technology hatching without actually developing the thing.

Jeffrey 11:40

And I guess we wouldn't know any of this if he hadn't died, right? Or at least, yeah.

Fabian 11:46

Probably not. I mean, we would probably see there's weird stuff going on at the beginning if that facility still existed. But yeah, so the thing is in the Iranian, in the Islamic Republic's culture, martyrs are really, really important thing. And you can just, if someone dies and someone prominent dies, I mean, sometimes these things can get covered up, but usually you wouldn't do that.

You would have to pay respects and like talk about the martyrs. And And talk about how much they achieved for the country. And you have the very same thing for Tehran and Mogadam. You have the same thing for a lot of his companions because like 39 other people died as well, perhaps more. It's a bit unclear. And so we have like before 2011, we have this window into the program because of so much material being released on the martyrs.

Jeffrey 12:31

Yeah, so he dies. I mean, you know, I think we assume people know this, but there is a large explosion at this facility called Big Guinea. Yeah. And it wipes out the functionally the entire team. It's like 40 some people, right?

Fabian 12:43

It's like 40 people. So it's a bit unclear how the program works. So apparently the people at Big Guinea were the people who were putting everything together and testing it. But apparently Imam Hussain University, which is the IRGC's private university, if you want, so was having a huge role in the program. There were private contractors, other universities they cooperated with.

But basically, the assembly and testing team, the core team, gets almost completely wiped out in this giant explosion. And we still don't know whether it was an accident or sabotage, because Muradam was a little crazy. He pushed the program ahead with very little regard for worker safety, for health and safety. But I mean, there were also a lot of people having an interest in this program that Succeeding, so.

Jeffrey 13:26

Yeah, I mean, one of the things that always struck me about that facility at Bitkinay, which we joke about all the time, is, you know, earth berms are such an important signature for a solid propellant missile facility, precisely because if there's an explosion, you want to try to contain it. And the thing about Bid Gane is there were no berms.

Fabian 13:45

You know, it might sound crazy, but I'm having more and more of the impression that this was like Mokadam's midlife crisis where other like people at his age would buy a motorcycle and the leather jacket. He had like the Saltsville Space Launch Vehicle Program because Bid Gane was actually a facility they used in the very early missile program that used to be an artillery repair shop.

And one of the first components they ever built for the missile program, which was like a transport container for scouts, some featherers to like Protect against shocks during transport on rough roads was built there. So it's like they used this very old facility they had from the good old days and turned it into like a giant salt propellant development facility.

Jeffrey 14:22

And I mean, it's one of these funny things where at that moment, they're building a new facility near Sherwood. Yeah. And But then he dies, right? Because there's this explosion and they have to bury him and they bury him without his head, you say, is the story, right? Which is why Decker Eveleth has a Tehrani Mohaddam's head is the name of his Twitter account.

Fabian 14:47

It's a good question because they are like this in Shia Islam. There are these stories about important figures of the family of the Prophet, they'd been buried without their head or with their hands severed and everything. So it might also be that they'd Kind of exaggerated that part in order to make Madame look more like Imam Hussain, but you never know.

Jeffrey 15:10

Yeah, and I guess, I mean, what's interesting about it to me is, you know, like, so there's this piece of infrastructure that gets built, but he's dead, and we don't, as a kind of outsiders, don't really see this new piece of infrastructure until, I guess, Jane spots it a few years later. And they, I don't want to say they misidentify it, because that's, I mean, they identify it correctly as a part of the space program, but they don't initially realize...

That it is part of the IRGC space program and functionally separate from the civilian space program, which to me is so interesting because you're really the person, at least in my existence, who, you know, looks at me and says, no dummy, this is not, that place at Sherwood is a different thing.

Fabian 15:55

I mean, it's fascinating because you had all of these pieces on The re-installed fuel space program. Like the head of the IRGC was saying like a year after Mogadam died that he was working in a solid propellant space launch vehicle, a large one. But like people hadn't really put the puzzle pieces together before, because I mean, Reading Iranian statements is really really hard when it comes to military development because you have in some aspects like aviation armor you have all of these very very modest projects which are hyped and are supposed to be real projects but actually they are not and they never enter serial production in other aspects you have like announcements that are very serious because the programs are very serious like ballistic missiles so it's it's very difficult to read Iranian statements in that regard you have to get used to The fact that there are vast differences between Uranian projects.

But if you have someone saying, yeah, in the missile program, there was this development program for assault and space launch vehicle, there is some reason to believe it's a serious program. And I mean, the geospatial signatures all match that kind of development.

Jeffrey 17:00

Yeah, well, so, I mean, to me, what was so interesting about it, though, I mean, you're being nice. You're saying like, oh, well, you know, it's difficult to know. But you really did some great detective work in terms of You know, ascertaining that Sharud, which by the way, when they finished building it out, had berms. Lesson learned.

Right? But, you know, so many things like the image you found of Mohaddam with a box next to him that had Sharud written on it. Yeah. The one that I love is your observation that, you know, all of the roofs at Big Guinea and Sherwood were painted the color of blue that represented his favorite football team.

Fabian 17:43

Yes, yes. And I mean, these are cool data points to find, but in the end, there's also just like... This point of common sense where you're saying, okay, they had like a solid fuel SLV program and around the same time they built this facility which has a space launch pad, which doesn't have fuel tanks like you would expect for a liquid fuel space launch pad.

You have solid propellant casting, you have solid propellant motor testing. I mean, it all adds up, all makes sense.

Jeffrey 18:14

It all adds up, but yet it didn't add up to other people, right? So I, you know, it's one of these things that in hindsight, it was really obvious. And when we kind of published the piece in the New York Times, I think it just struck people as like, oh yeah, well, everybody knew that. But like, no, everybody didn't know that.

Like it was, from my perspective, when you came to work with us and, you know, you made this argument, that was like a huge revelation to me. And it's one of the things that I like about what we do, because I think for a lot of people, what we do feels like slightly like it's a magic trick.

You know, but like you and I have been walking around saying Iran is really working hard on a solid fuel space launcher that could be an ICBM. And people would look at me at least like I was insane. But I always felt like, well, like you're the crazy one because we actually have identified the facility where they're doing it.

And we can watch the tests because we can see the burn scars in the ground. So I found that really interesting.

Fabian 19:10

I mean, there was so much material around there about the old program that there was like very little doubt that that was what they were working on, especially if you look at the kind of people who comment on it, like not random Iranian TV presenters, but rather like high ranking RGC figures just confirming the program. Why they did so in some of the interviews is another question, whether that was politics or not, or whether they were just in the mood for talking about that.

I mean, the one thing I did wonder about, I kind of had the feeling the program continued, and there were some statements that the program continued, but I was not 100% certain that it would have continued after 2011, because, I mean, apparently there was criticism that Mogadam was, Mogadam's method was not the best, and I have the feeling there's criticism.

Jeffrey 19:52

I don't know why people would assume that. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's not, it's not like he wiped out his entire developmental team in a, in a, in an accident.

Fabian 20:03

Yeah. I mean, it's, so apparently they have just this sold to SLV on a shoestring concept and Moghadam was just investing all of the money into like a progress, technical progress in the program instead of security measures. And Apparently, that kind of low-budget SLV thingy continues right now because they were saying they actually didn't test the second and third stage motors and vacuum chambers because they don't have the money.

So that continues. The organization is still the same. So apparently, the program, despite the explosion, really hasn't changed that much. That's quite surprising.

Jeffrey 20:42

And maybe I'm making too much of this point. But just to me, what the kind of interesting experience has been is that We have been waiting, for a lot of people, this launch was a surprise. But for you and us, it feels like we have been waiting forever for it to happen. And the difference is that once you unlocked the idea that Sharoud was not part of the Iranian space program in the sense of the national civilian space program, it was part of this separate IRGC effort.

Once you did that, Then when we saw engine tests at the site, we understood that the program had resumed. And so, you know, there's this kind of constant battle I find when we are doing our work and then trying to put it in the press. It's really hard when you see something early, right? Like here is a facility, they are doing engine testing at the facility.

In a few years, this will be a solid fueled space launcher. It turns out it's really hard. The media is not actually interested until the thing launches.

Fabian 21:52

I mean, that's just human nature. We only react when things are happening and when it's already late. But I'm not mentioning the bad thing.

Jeffrey 22:01

Yeah, that's true. So what I would say is one of the things is, from our perspective, we saw this build in tempo. We saw the pace of engine testing at Sherwood increase. We saw movement at the site, not in the past days, but I mean like over the past year, really saw a series of things at the site that suggested, at least to me, this launch was coming.

And then... You know, you were very quick to notice that there was like a change in the tone of their propaganda. So, for example, we got both that image of a large diameter solid fuel motor on a test stand with Mohaddam talking to people, which you modeled and took forever.

Fabian 22:49

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey 22:51

Yeah, that was a lot of work, but it was a lot of good work. And then they actually unveiled the Salman, which is the upper stage that they just used.

Fabian 23:01

I mean, that's funny that you talk about signaling, because I actually wonder when Iranian signaling on this issue started, because you always have like these batches of material released whenever there's an anniversary of Moghadam's martyrdom. And like in 2017, they released the pictures of him with the Supreme Leader, where you can see like the logo with the Space Launch Vehicle and the IRGC logo on his lab coat.

Then in 2018, they released like this picture of the IRGC leader with... A reflection of Big Gunny's casting pit in his sunglasses.

Jeffrey 23:33

That was some fine open source work, by the way, when you reverse engineered the picture of the thing we weren't supposed to see out of the guy's sunglasses.

Fabian 23:40

I actually, at this point, I wonder whether we were supposed to see it or not, because whether that might have been like the first part of signaling that...

Jeffrey 23:47

I love the idea that there is some... Little bearded man, Fabian, sitting in an IRGC's office whose entire job in life is to give you breadcrumbs.

Fabian 24:01

I mean, it sounds conspiratorial.

Jeffrey 24:06

By the way, this is actually... By the way, that person... Yeah. Is also investigating getting a plush doll of you. So what you should do is have a plush doll of yourself made and a plush doll of either Haji Zayda or Mohadam made, and you should just swap them.

Fabian 24:23

This is getting so meta right now, I love it. Yeah, so there's this funny thing is the Iranians built like the spy series and actually they have like in one episode, there's a bit of ozone because like they find out about the woman's connection to foreign diplomats by analyzing the reflection in her sunglasses on something she posted on Instagram, which is exactly what happened with like Jeffrey because he also posted a picture to Instagram.

Yeah, it's funny.

Jeffrey 24:50

Yeah, so I, you know, I just, I guess I'm beating this point to death, but just to me, I cannot help, before we actually talk about the actual vehicle, I cannot help but note how surprised everyone else is. And in some way, how disappointing that launch was to me because it actually doesn't show off All that much that's new.

There are still surprises left to come. And the reason that we're having that such different reaction is because when you were doing so much good work on the open source side, you were putting us in a position intellectually to understand there is a separate space program. It is centered on this place called Sherwood. It is, you know, it has been reactivated.

It didn't stop with Mohaddam's death. They're doing large engine tests. You know, here's every little nugget we've been able to find. Here's pictures of the test, videos of the test. You know, I'm going to pull this casting pit from Bid G'day off this guy's, you know, glasses. So it gets to the point where like, I literally remember you earlier this year saying like, I think they're ready.

Like they're just giving us so much stuff. This feels different to me. And you know, like you were right.

Fabian 26:03

I mean, it's funny because It really shows you how important the analysis of facilities and institutional structures is, because imagine you would have the SLV we have now, and you would just see pictures of it, and you would just do technical analysis. You would probably think, you know, it's a Saphir, it's a bit improved over the Saphir, but like its basic concept is pretty similar.

But as you know, the facilities, the historical trajectory and institutions involved, you kind of know it's something very, very different.

Jeffrey 26:31

Well, and this is one of the biggest problems I have in communicating our research out because we all do this implicitly. Like, I remember watching some facilities get changed over and trying to explain that, like, oh, look, the fact that they're rebuilding all these buildings and changing these barracks and doing all these fundamental changes to a missile base, that to me is a sign that they have a new missile.

Right? Because, you know, once you have a new missile, you have a whole new workflow. Right? You have different people with different jobs, different numbers of people, different kinds of vehicles. And so you have to actually change your infrastructure to accommodate your new missile. And I could not get people to grasp this idea that a different bunker means a different missile because there are just practicalities associated with how you organize to operate something like this.

Fabian 27:18

I mean, that's true. It's, it's also true for like the research on the social SLV program in Iran. Like the problem I had was that there was so much information out there, but it was all breadcrumbs and they were overlapping all the time. So it was like very, very convincing because you just had so much overlapping information, but each single piece in itself, wasn't that spectacular.

And like, if you want to convince people that to, Radically change their mental framework. You usually need one thing that's like super striking, super convincing and everything. And for a long time, that kind of piece just wasn't there and that made it a little bit difficult to convince people.

Jeffrey 27:56

And I think the other thing, and this is probably a good chance to actually transition to the technology that was demonstrated. I do think one lingering issue we have in the West, which frankly, I no longer give a . I'm just gonna chalk up to racism, is that we still continue to believe that technologies that we've pioneered are too hard for others.

And for some reason, large diameter solid propellant missiles, even though India has them, North Korea has fairly large diameter ones. And now, we haven't seen a large diameter Iranian one, but we've gotten all the indications that we need that we will. That evidence doesn't really seem to penetrate people's sense of, yeah, but that's a technology for us, not them.

And they're not going to be able to do that, at least not in any near term kind of way.

Fabian 28:54

Yeah. It's also a problem how we look at Iran and what Iran is saying, because you often have this like mental lens, if you want, so that the Iranians are showing stuff and they're exaggerating. It's not really a new system. It's an old system and they just put a new name on it. And I mean, Iran is a very complicated country and a very complicated regime.

And they have lots of different development efforts. I mean, it's a bit like the US. You have some gradual improvements. You have some groundbreaking new weapons, et cetera, et cetera, and everything in between. You have programs that are exceptionally well organized. You have programs that are really badly organized. And I mean, you have to detangle all of these things.

You can just put them into like one, you could just put them all into one basket or something. So I think that is a huge problem, that often you have this assumption the Iranians are showing us everything they have and exaggerate these things, while in reality they might not be showing everything they're doing. So there was this recent comment by Haji Zadeh saying, you know, it's our culture in the IRGC that we only talk about the past and never talk about the future or the present.

And this is something that is not fully appreciated, that what Iran, even if they exaggerate some parts of what they have, they might be doing other very advanced stuff secretly.

Jeffrey 30:10

Well, and this is exactly a challenge that I find we have with North Korea, where I cannot tell you the number of times when we are talking about systems, people will say, I don't believe that these systems are real because there's no way they could have developed these four missiles in one year. And it's like, no, no, no, no.

They showed you four missiles in one year. You don't know when each of these things was developed. We didn't see them test the Musudan until the Obama administration, but there were reports that that thing was in North Korea and then in Iran in the early 2000s. And further reports that had been fielded by the mid-2000s. And so the fact that they don't bother to get around to openly testing it and showing us it for like, you know, what amounts to like 10-ish years, give or take.

Like people are acting like, oh, well, I just saw it for the first time. And so therefore it's new. And it's like, yeah, that's not how object permanence works.

Fabian 31:13

That's true. That is true. And like the other thing is, I mean, Iran is a large country. It's a very scientifically advanced country in many regards. You have a missile program that is a prime, how to say that? Sorry. Like that is a prime component of Iran's national security strategy that has lots of resources invested into it.

They've been working on it for quite a while. They've been working on developing ballistic missiles for three decades. I mean, you're bound to make some progress. Yeah.

Jeffrey 31:44

And, you know, again, I just don't think that that technology is so... Yeah. I mean, I don't want to diminish it, right? I don't want to say, like... I don't want to say it's, you know... I don't want to say even these countries can do it. Because I think part of our problem is that we imagine that we are somehow superior.

And it's not that. But it's like... When we did this in the late 50s, early 60s, and then when the Soviets did it a few years later in the 1960s, we weren't that great. Yes, it was a technology that had certain steps that needed to be taken and certain problems that needed to be solved. But those problems are solved and there are perfectly good engineers in Iran and India and North Korea and lots of other countries around the world who can do this stuff.

Yeah, that's true.

Fabian 32:33

Having said that, the actual thing they tested is slightly disappointing. Kind of, yes. So I actually wondered back in the day, like what they would first test. And like, I was hoping for something a little bit more spectacular with the salt. I thought they wouldn't go like right to something that looks like an ICBM. They would test something smaller first, but it was at least expecting the first stage to be solid.

And that's not what happened.

Jeffrey 32:55

I mean, it's the first step. So just to, Explain for listeners what Iran tested, and then we can talk about the pieces individually. There were three stages and a very small satellite. So the first stage was an existing military missile, which is a, they said it was a Goddard, is that correct?

Fabian 33:21

A Goddard, yeah. So you- You can also see it from the fins. So it's basically, the Iranians had the Shahab-3, which we all know is basically based on the North Korean Nodong, which is a scaled-up scud. And the radar is really the, what the Iranians did with the scud and the VOM is what they did with the Shahab and the radar.

So basically, they improved some of the technologies, used aluminum airframes, increased fuel tank and oxidized tank space. Improve guidance and everything to get a better range out of the system, stretch it a little depending on the version. And that's what they used for the first stage.

Jeffrey 33:57

Yeah. And so, you know, I, I just, it's a, it makes a lot of sense that rather than showing off a new solid propellant first stage, they were taking a perfectly reliable missile. And it, it does, when you say that it's a variant of the no dong, it does. I think some people get the idea that it's fairly crappy, but it's a really, it's a fancy missile.

Substantially improved variant of the Nodong, right? I mean, as you say, as an aluminum airframe, maybe a little bit of oomph, extra oomph in the engine. And they did this, well, Haja Zeta, right, had this story about why they chose to do this. I mean, you and I both agree that maybe they're holding a little bit back for later, but they also sort of said like, oh yeah, we did this because...

Fabian 34:45

So it's interesting, Hodges O'Dea is saying that basically their program is a program for solid fuel SLEs. Then he's asking this rhetorical question, like why did we use a solid liquid propellant first stage? And he says that they wanted to do things on the cheap, that they didn't want to test two new things at the same time.

Which by the way, it does have a certain logic to it, right? If you're trying not to like ruin things. And it has a certain logic to it, but that from now on, now that you know that the second and third stages are working, because he was saying they didn't have the Testing equipment to test them on the vacuum conditions, and they were only relying on the calculations, so there was a lot of uncertainty. And he was saying that now that this uncertainty has been removed, they can move towards a new system with a solid first stage. And the question, of course, is like, of course, it makes sense from a technological point of view to use a reliable system as a first stage and then test the stuff that is new. It perhaps makes sense from a financial perspective, but of course, it also makes sense from this kind of gradual escalation perspective, and

We don't really know how much of these factors interact, which factor was the most important thing for that decision, but yeah.

Jeffrey 35:55

And I think, I know I've said this, but just to be really clear about this, I certainly think, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm pretty sure you think, looking at the testing that we're seeing occur at Chirrut and looking at those burn scars, I don't have any doubt that a large diameter solid propellant first stage is in fact pretty far along in terms of its development.

Fabian 36:23

I don't have that much thought either. I think they probably already have. Perhaps that's my personal guess. I mean, I can't base it on anything except the testing pattern and like how Gisela's comment.

Jeffrey 36:33

I mean, something is leaving really big scars in the desert.

Fabian 36:35

Yeah, something is leaving really big scars. They're using really, really big engine test stands, which they, of course, can use for smaller ones. But I have a feeling this stuff is already ready. Like at least a new first stage for the whole set, yeah.

Jeffrey 36:50

And I will say we finally, Adam Martin finally finished the calculations. It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen GRAs do, you calculated the thrust for the Ahmad, which is one of these, one of these super no-dongs.

Fabian 37:11

Basically, the precision guided battery, which is like the super sharp.

Jeffrey 37:14

Right, but we had really good data on it. And you came up with what, like it was 291 or 292 kilonewtons of thrust. In tons, it was like something from 30 to 32. Yeah. And then well, I like kilonewtons cause I got three significant digits and When David Laboon and Adam Martin went ahead and looked at all the videos and modeled them in three dimensions in Blender, which is the thing they want to do, and then they also ran it through Physics Tracker, taking our estimates of the whole mass of the system, they got 291 kilonewtons of thrust for the engine.

So, I mean, I suspect the accuracy is a little bit lucky, you know, that actual mileage may vary, But it was sort of beautiful that like the Iranians were like, oh, it's a Goddard engine. And it's like, yes, yes it is.

Fabian 38:10

And you know, the cool thing about like using a reliable first stage is that you have like the same kind of screech before the engine starts as a regular Goddard and you can match it with the others. So that's kind of cool.

Jeffrey 38:22

Yeah, that's awesome. So the second stage we saw because Haji Zayda and was it Salami? Yeah. I love that he's Salami, by the way. They actually showed us this earlier this year when they pulled back a little... They had it sitting under a blanket or a cloth, right?

Fabian 38:45

I'm not sure whether it was satin or velvet. I think it was green satin.

Jeffrey 38:52

So we'd actually seen this thing before.

Fabian 38:53

Yeah, we've seen it before. So that was actually the first thing that was kind of definite proof that this program is still alive. In February... Celebrating the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, they showed us a new short-range ballistic missile, the Ra'at 500, but they also showed us the Salmon motor, which is like this upper stage salt propellant motor, and what was interesting about this motor, oh, there's so much interesting stuff about this motor, but like,

Jeffrey 39:20

It's a shame someone doesn't have a specialist podcast where you could talk for hours about all the interesting things about the motor. Where could you get invited to do that, Fabian?

Fabian 39:31

Yeah, no. So the first interesting thing, of course, is that it was built by the IRGC. Because Iran's ballistic missiles are usually built by either Shahid Pokhari Industrial Group or Shahid Hamad Industrial Group, which are both under... The command of the Iranian Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics. And the IRGC, of course, has a role in testing these kind of things and operating them a little bit in development, of course, as well.

But usually they wouldn't be the ones to develop motors. So that was already very interesting. And now you have this, okay, the IRGC is separately developing motors and it's related to space. So that already is basically in confirmation. And then, of course, you have the footage of the motor undergoing tests at Shahrukh. That was the very first time they ever released a picture of Shahrukh or footage of Shahrukh.

So they showed us that they were ready.

Jeffrey 40:30

And really interesting. Interestingly, I mean, the other thing I love about it is it has a carbon composite case.

Fabian 40:38

They showed us the carbon fiber casing. They showed us the production of the carbon fiber casing, again, in the facility with IRGC logos in the background. And, of course, it has a swiveling nozzle for thrust vector control, which is pretty amazing.

Jeffrey 40:52

I mean, all in all, it's a pretty fancy upper stage, and all of those technologies are, in principle, portable to a large-diameter first-stage motor.

Fabian 41:01

I mean, there's this amazing part of the unveiling of the Salmon, where Jorge is standing right next to the motor, of course, touching it as well. And he's saying, you know... Gently stroking the motor. Gently stroking the motor. Oh, by the way, fun fact, completely unrelated. Morgadam was not touching missiles. He was actually hugging them. That's something I found out in my research.

Okay. Yeah, which is great. Hugging a fully fueled scut.

Jeffrey 41:26

Full bear hug.

Fabian 41:28

Yes.

Jeffrey 41:28

Maybe a little rub there. A little rub, giving the scut a little love, the scut beef.

Fabian 41:36

So he's standing next to it and he's saying, you know, this technology also has a lot of military applications. And he's just staring at the corner, trying to find words, and then comes up with ballistic missile defense. Not allowed. And like in his recent interview after the Rosette launch, he's like, you know, we knew that Western intelligence services were like monitoring this program because it has a lot of different dimensions to it.

So there's some subtle hints with Hojizo there as well.

Jeffrey 42:09

Well, and before we talk about the third stage, I mean, here's where we should jump in. I mean, this, this is like a really, really fancy Tape-O-Dong. Where instead of a late 90s North Korean nodong, you have a much, much, much fancier version of it, probably with more thrust, certainly with a much lighter weight aluminum airframe, and just a much better first stage.

And then instead of a second stage, which is gonna be like a scud, they've replaced it with this really fancy solid propellant, carbon composite airframe, thrust vector control, You know, rocket motor. And if you just think about that for a minute, like the, even that crappy Taepodong-1 was an intermediate range ballistic missile. You know, that was a thing that could get to, you know, three, 4,000 kilometers, depending on stuff.

Undesirable for lots of reasons, made it, was a crappy ballistic missile. And, you know, I don't think that the Iranians are going to take the, you know, do the liquid solid thing together, but like, it would be like a fine missile.

Fabian 43:24

The one thing I would add, if the Iranians are interested in like this kind of range class, which I'm not sure whether they're actually really interested in that, it would be a good upgrade for existing missiles because they have lots of others just flying around. And if you can just like upgrade them with a second stage motor, it might be something that might be interesting.

We will have to see.

Jeffrey 43:46

Well, I think the thing that I would say about this, which is kind of a thing we'll come back to in the wrap-up phase, but it was the point we tried to make in that New York, well, this point I tried to make in that New York Times piece. We really are coasting on the fact that the Iranians have voluntarily chosen to limit the range of their missiles so as to avoid a political crisis.

We don't, you know, this is not a technical limit on them. There's no universe of sanctions in which we could prevent them from developing an ICBM. They could do that if they chose.

Fabian 44:25

I mean, it's quite fascinating. If you look at when the range limit was set, apparently in the early 2000s, the technological level back then and now, in two decades, it has so dramatically increased. If you look at 2000, what did they have in terms of solid fuel? They had the crappy first-generation Forte 110 Now they have something like this full precision guided with a range of 1,000 kilometers.

And so you have this kind of antiquated, at least from a technical point of view, range limit, which was just Remained in place for political reasons only. And people did not appreciate that. And people did not appreciate Iran's both willingness and ableness to escalate in the missile and space field. And now we're here.

Jeffrey 45:09

And, you know, one of these things I say when I say it, people look at me like I have an arm growing out of my head. Iran's not in the missile technology control regime. And I understand because we imagine that the MTCR was designed to prevent countries like Iran from getting missiles. But a supplier cartel that does not include Iran is not really a cartel.

The third stage is probably worth talking about just a, just a minute. Like we don't really know what it is. A lot of people like Jonathan McDowell pointed to some third stages that we've seen. There's one called the Arash, which sort of roughly replicates the performance you would need to get the satellite in the orbit that it got in.

But how'd you say to you said actually indicated that this was an IRGC developed variants that had not been vacuum tested.

Fabian 45:59

The thing is we've seen vacuum testing of the ORASH and the ORASH was actually developed by one of the civilian organizations associated with the official space program. So I have like my doubts the guys from the IRGC would just be willing to take this kind of thing and then why did you say that both stages were not vacuum tested when we have footage of the ORASH being vacuum tested.

So I kind of have the feeling they would have developed their own system for that.

Jeffrey 46:27

Yeah, this is one of those cases where for modeling purposes, the Arash is useful because it tells you what they can do. And obviously, like the satellites in orbit, so we can kind of constrain the performance of the system by what it was able to achieve. So, you know, I guess that's my way of saying there's a kind of interesting thing that happens on the open source side, like we don't We don't really have any information about the third stage, but in a funny kind of way, we have the information we need.

Fabian 46:58

Yeah, we have enough information, I guess.

Jeffrey 47:00

Yeah, I don't know. Sometimes our gig is weird like that, right? Like I know it's not the Arash third stage and yet it turns out whatever it was performs very much like an Arash third stage.

Fabian 47:13

I mean, it's funny because we have like an incredible amount of information in the first stage, quite a lot of information about the second one and then absolutely nothing about the third one. So that's always a problem.

Jeffrey 47:24

Yeah, well, we may get more, right, as time comes. And then, of course, there's a small satellite, which Jonathan McDowell quite cleverly noted was, I think, a six, was it called a 6U? So it's going to be like, yeah, it's going to be like, you know, what, something, I forget what the lower bound is, but not more than 15 kilograms.

So it's really quite small.

Fabian 47:49

And it's like, I think, 425 kilometer orbit. So that's what they mean, yeah.

Jeffrey 47:54

Yeah, which we've had Michael Dutzman working with STK to actually try to like help us constrain whatever model we're building.

Fabian 48:01

Actually, I'm really wondering whether they're going to show us like reconnaissance pictures taken by the satellite.

Jeffrey 48:08

I mean, I love that they're trying to be Planet Labs.

Fabian 48:11

Yeah. And I mean, it's like resolution is not perfect. But I mean, if you have like a nice picture of Tel Aviv or New York City nicely processed, I mean, they would probably do that for propaganda purposes.

Jeffrey 48:23

We work quite a lot with moderate resolution satellite imagery. Yeah, you can do a lot of things with moderate resolution satellite imagery. I would rather have a daily moderate resolution image of an adversary than not have one.

Fabian 48:42

That is true, yeah.

Jeffrey 48:43

There's real value there. So yeah, it would be interesting to see. I think things I'm looking forward to are do they tell us more about the third stage? Do they tell us more about the satellite? And when do we see the big booster that's leaving those burn scars in the desert?

Fabian 49:07

I mean, that's a good question. Like, how will they proceed? I think they will do it very gradually, step by step. So the next one might have, like, a salt fuel first stage, but they might be planning something much larger. So Ho Chi Minh was already saying that they're working on satellites that will be heavier and will have different orbits.

The also newly unveiled commander of the IRGC Space Force was saying that they are basically the space command within the IRGC Aerospace Force. Was saying that they're working on medium Earth orbit and geo as well. So they're planning to have something much, much heavier as well. And of course, it's unknown whether that is something they're planning in the long term or whether they're already working on it, whether the stuff is already ready.

Jeffrey 49:54

And it's worth noting that this is what India did, right? India pursued a large solid propellant space launcher and then transitioned those technologies into an ICBM. So it's not crazy for the Iranians to hedge in the way you're saying, right? They can just continue this. By the way, this should also be a wake up for people who don't think North Korea can design a solid propellant ICBM.

Just FYI, the Salmans, woo, it's fun.

Fabian 50:24

Yeah, and you know, the thing is with Iran, the other question, of course, is whether they might have similar hedging programs in other aspects as well, like this liquid fuel. There's still this report that North Korea and Iran cooperated on the 80-ton booster engine. So, you know, never know. Perhaps they have some other stuff in the works as well.

Jeffrey 50:41

Oh, I would be very disappointed if we learned nothing else was coming. Yeah. So I don't know, you know, what are your big takeaways from this? I mean, I've already said that you and I weren't really shocked, so it's not like it really changes how we look at the world, but now we do have more data both about Where this program is.

We're now no longer saying like we used to, we used to try to convince people that the space launch program, the solid space launch program wasn't dead. And you pointed to the burn scars and the vehicles and we're like, oh, no, see, it's still going. Like, well, that's settled.

Fabian 51:18

So where does it leave us? I would say like they're increasing their hedging as they are also fiddling with the provisions of the nuclear deal. Trying to return pressure and it will be very, very difficult to reverse these kind of developments. I mean, it's the IRGC's program. They own it. How much control will the civilian government even have over that kind of program?

Probably not too much. So it's, we're reaching a point where right now everyone's complaining about Iran's shorter range ballistic missiles. And we're reaching a point where no one, We might be reaching a point where no one will really talk about these anymore because you have a much bigger problem at hand. So, yeah.

Jeffrey 51:59

And you have just written something for ELN, did you not?

Fabian 52:03

Yeah, I did. It's a short article with a short analysis of the whole thingy where I basically argue that we're going to see a very similar development to the nuclear program in terms of hedging, in terms of gradual escalation of hedging. And that this kind of new reality will be very difficult. It will be very difficult to make it go away.

Jeffrey 52:23

Well, congratulations, Fabian. You have ensured a lifetime of employment tracking these things and saying, I told you so.

Fabian 52:35

I mean, I can say I told you so, but I mean, for me, this space program was my white whale I was chasing. So now I have like this huge abyss of nothingness opening up in my life. You're very German. It's out in the open. Sad. This is my birthday. This is my birthday, the day upon which I, I reflect upon my mortality. I mean, what am I gonna do in my life now that the Solar Propellant Space Launch Program is out in the open? It's like, well, we get to see the first stage booster, that's gonna be fun. Yeah, that's okay. We haven't seen like high resolution imagery of the Castle Building there, so there's still some, and we haven't seen like too much aerial footage of the crater, I guess, so There's still some stuff left, but still, like, it's an existential crisis.

Jeffrey 53:18

Well, I'm really happy that you took some time to come join me on the podcast today.

Fabian 53:23

Yeah, definitely. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Jeffrey 53:26

Well, thank you for joining me, and thank you for listening.