Dubai, United Arab Emirates: A rocket at an Iranian space centre that was to conduct a satellite launch criticised by the US exploded on its launch pad on Thursday.
The incident, Iran’s third failed launch this year, took place at the Imam Khomeini Space Centre in Semnan province, and was captured on satellite image.
An Iranian official later said the explosion”was due to some technical issues…but our young scientists are working to fix the problem”.
Satellite images by Planet Labs showed a black plume of smoke rising above a launch pad with what appeared to be the charred remains of a rocket and its launch stand. In previous days, satellite images had shown the launch pad had been repainted blue.
On Thursday morning, half of that paint had apparently been burnt off.
David Schmerler, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, said the images suggested the rocket either exploded during ignition or possibly briefly lifted off before crashing back down on the pad.
Water runoff from the pad, probably a result of efforts to extinguish the blaze, could be seen along with a host of vehicles parked nearby.
US-based NPR first reported on the satellite images of the apparent failed launch, some 240 kilometres southeast of Iran’s capital, Tehran.
Read the article by Jon Gambrell in The Sydney Morning Herald.