Iran's space journey began modestly. In 1960, the country joined the International Satellite Communications Organization and installed a satellite receiving antenna in Asadabad, Hamedan. By 1974, a Satellite Data Collection Office was processing imagery from early Landsat satellites. Two years later, Iran purchased receiving stations capable of downloading images directly. These were not the gestures of a country dreaming of rockets - they were practical investments in remote sensing for agriculture and planning. But they planted a seed. The Iranian Remote Sensing Center grew into a national space institution, and the ambition expanded with it. Iran was also one of the 24 founding members of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, established in December 1958 - a seat at the table that signaled intent long before capability arrived.

The Safir was Iran's first orbital-class launch vehicle: 22 meters tall, 1.25 meters in diameter, with two liquid-propellant stages generating enough thrust to loft a small satellite. It was the rocket that carried Omid to orbit. But the Safir was only the beginning. The Simorgh, named after a mythical Persian bird, followed in 2010 - a larger vehicle 26.5 meters long, weighing 87 tonnes, capable of placing 250 kilograms into a 500-kilometer orbit. Its first stage burns through four main engines generating 162,000 kilograms of thrust at liftoff. In 2021, the Zuljanah tested successfully with an innovative design: two solid-fuel stages topped by a liquid-fuel third stage, capable of carrying 220 kilograms to 500 kilometers. Each rocket represented a step forward in indigenous capability, built despite sanctions that restricted access to foreign technology and components.

Before sending humans, Iran sent animals. On February 3, 2010, a Kavoshgar-3 rocket carried one rodent, two turtles, and several worms into sub-orbital space and returned them alive. The launch transmitted live video footage of the biological payload back to Earth. Iran became the sixth country to send animals into space. In January 2013, Iran claimed to have launched a monkey named Pishgam aboard a Kavoshgar-5 rocket to an altitude of 120 kilometers, recovering it safely. A second monkey mission followed in December 2013. These biological flights were preparation for an ambition first voiced during a 1990 summit between Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, when the two leaders discussed sending an Iranian to space aboard the Mir station. The Soviet Union collapsed before the plan materialized.

Iran's main launch site sits near Shahrud, east of Tehran, where suborbital rockets have climbed into the sky above the Dasht-e-Kavir desert. A second site operates near Semnan, unveiled in February 2008 during the first Kavoshgar launch. The Semnan facility includes an underground command center, a tracking station, and a launch pad. In December 2013, a third site opened near Shahroud, featuring what officials described as a space monitoring center. The geography makes sense: the desert provides clear skies and open terrain for launches heading east, while the surrounding emptiness provides safety margins that populated regions cannot. From altitude, the launch complexes appear as small geometric patterns scratched into the vast tan canvas of Iran's interior desert.

Iran's space program has never existed in a vacuum - politically or diplomatically. The United States and Europe have condemned the program, arguing that the same rocket technology that places satellites in orbit can deliver warheads across continents. The Safir's heritage from the Shahab missile series makes the concern difficult to dismiss entirely. Analysts have compared Iran's trajectory to the early Soviet Sputnik program, noting that rapid space advancement often signals broader military capability. Iran maintains that its space program is peaceful, pointing to its founding membership in COPUOS and its development of communications, remote sensing, and scientific satellites. The debate remains unresolved. What is not debatable is the achievement itself: a country under sustained sanctions built rockets, satellites, and launch infrastructure from the ground up, and reached orbit.