Explainer: Kavous launch a step toward sending Iranian astronauts into space
The successful launch of the experimental Kavous space capsule represents a significant step in Iran’s program to send astronauts into space, aiming to become the fourth country to do so.
On Wednesday, Iran successfully put into orbit its newest bioastronautical capsule with the domestically-built Salman rocket, launched from the Imam Khomeini Space Center in Semnan Province.
The 500-kilogram capsule, developed by Iran’s Aerospace Research Institute (ARI), affiliated to the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, was launched to an altitude of 130 kilometers and returned safely.
The launch is a step to send humans into space in line with the Iranian government’s plan to revive various sectors of the space industry and consolidate bioastronautical knowledge.
What are Iran’s previous bioastronautic flights?
The first unofficial announcements about Iran’s human space program appeared in the mid-2000s and were confirmed officially in August 2008 by the head of the Iranian Space Agency (ISA).
The Aerospace Research Institute (ARI) later revealed that the bioastronautical program began as early as 2002 when the ministries of science and defense entered into an agreement on a joint space program.
In November 2008, Iran took the first practical steps, launching an experimental biocapsule to an altitude of 40 km with a Kavoushgar-2 (B) rocket.
In February 2010, the same rocket launched cold-blooded animals, more specifically turtles, mice and worms, on an atmospheric flight of 55 km.
In the same year, the program called “Design, Construction and Launch of Space Probes with Living Organisms” was declared to be of national importance.
In March 2011, two years after the 2009 launch of the first Omid satellite, a Kavoushgar-4 (C) rocket was launched above the Kamran line at a suborbital altitude of 135 km, carrying an experimental biocapsule for warm-blooded animals.
The Kavoushgar-2/3 (B) atmospheric launch missile is a modified version of the SRBM Naze’at with a range of 100 km, while the Kavoushgar-4/8 (C) is a modified version of the SRBM Fateh-110 with a range of 300 km.
After two more biocapsule launches in September 2011 and September 2012, the rhesus monkey Pishgam was sent into space in January 2013, and Farjam at the end of the same year, both on suborbital flights of 120 km.
With this success, Iran became the sixth country to send animals into space, after the two Cold War superpowers, as well as France, China and Japan.
These flights enabled Iran to independently study organisms in space, in parallel with which the development of new launch vehicles and human space capsules was taking place.
What is the Kavous space capsule?
The Kavous space capsule is an experimental one-person spacecraft designed for a short trip into space, above the Kamran line of 100 km, and surviving a reentry to the Earth’s surface.
Strictly technically speaking, it is an uncrewed boilerplate spacecraft, used to test design, stage configuration, materials, instruments and their behavior during flight, with the purpose of verification and improving the final crewed spacecraft.
A usable human capsule represents a demanding engineering feat because it requires materials resistant to high reentry temperatures of a few thousand degrees Celsius.
In addition to structural durability, controlled reentry with tolerant g-forces is also necessary, since the excessive ones can have a lethal effect on the human body.
A mock-up of Iran’s human capsule, called the E1 capsule, was first unveiled at a technology exhibition in February 2015 by researchers and specialists from the Iranian Space Research Center.
It has a typical conical shape and, according to the Aerospace Research Institute (ARI), has an outer diameter of 2 meters and a height of 2,475 m, leaving room for one astronaut.
This diameter is larger than all Iranian operational launch vehicles such as Safir, Qased (1.25 m), Zuljanah and the second stage of Simorgh (1.5 m), which is also visible when mounted on top of the narrower Salman launch vehicle.
The mass of the Kavous space capsule at 500 kg is twice the orbital capacity of the Simorgh payload, implying that the capsule is intended for suborbital flights with Iran’s current capabilities.
The next step in development, according to ISA head Hassan Salarieh, is the construction of a 1.5-ton capsule in two years, which indirectly made it clear that more powerful launch vehicles than the existing ones are being developed.
For comparison, the Soviet capsule Vostok 3KA with which the first man in space Yuri Gagarin made one orbital revolution has a mass of 2.5 tons, and the American capsule MR-3 Freedom 7 with which Alan Shepard made a short suborbital flight has a mass of 1.8 tons.
Before their successful launches, both countries had four failures each with experimental, often lighter boilerplates of the Vostok and Mercury projects, respectively.
According to Salarieh, Kavous successfully landed on the surface of the Earth and the only difficulties were noted with part of the parachutes, but all carrying instruments remained intact.
He additionally mentioned that several more test flights with heavier and more complex test capsules are planned, before the first launch of an Iranian astronaut into space.
What about launch deadlines?
Certain foreign and domestic media in reviews pointed out that the Iranian manned space program has been going on for many years and that the originally announced dates have been repeatedly postponed.
In 2008 and 2010, Iranian officials announced a human mission until 2019. Then, in 2016, it was moved to 2025, and according to the latest announcements, the new deadline is 2029.
In 2017, the then-Deputy Director of the ISA revealed that the costly human space program was temporarily postponed as the then government prioritized the aeronautical budget on the cargo space program and the development of passenger aircraft.
Today, when Iran’s economy has recovered significantly from sanctions and the US policy of maximum pressure has failed, technological development programs are accelerating.
Critics of breaking deadlines forget that this is not a Cold War space race in which the superpowers, for the sake of global prestige, push the development speed and allocate several percentages of their GDP to it.
Thanks to this, the time gap between the first Soviet and American satellites launched into space and their first astronaut was only three and a half years.
On the other hand, Iran’s human space program is proceeding according to research needs and existing financial capabilities, so the delays are not the result of inability or a series of failures.
China, as the third and last country to send a man into space, as well as other world candidates for fourth place, does not have a respectable gap between announcements and successful implementation.
In 1968, Beijing announced a program with the goal of sending a human spacecraft into space within five years, but the goal was not met and the first man was sent in 2003, a full 35 years after the announcement and 33 years after their first satellite.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has been announcing the development of such spacecraft since its creation in 1975, but to this day, almost half a century later, this has not been achieved.
Japan announced three different human spaceflight projects from 1988 to 2001, but none were successful, nor was India’s program which has been ongoing since 2006.
