Iran designing advanced satellite for seismological studies

Iranian experts and engineers are working on an advanced satellite system to foresee seismological changes and earthquakes, a senior research official announced on Wednesday. "It is predicted that the satellite (Ayat) will be put into orbit by March 2016," Head of the Telecommunications and Satellite Technology Research Center Shervin Amiri told reporters on Wednesday. Amiri noted that the satellite will be put into orbit on the back of a an Iran-made rocket. He underlined that the mission of Ayat will be studying the impacts of earthquakes on the Earth's magnetic field in a bid to foresee the happening of future quakes and tremors. "We have already conducted feasibility studies of the project and we are in the designing phase," Amiri added. Omid (hope) was Iran's first research satellite that was designed for gathering information and testing equipment. After orbiting for three months, Omid successfully completed its mission without any problem. It completed more than 700 orbits over seven weeks and reentered the Earth's atmosphere on April 25, 2009. Iran unveiled its new telecommunication satellite, Persian Gulf, in an official ceremony in Tehran in early February. Persian Gulf, designed and manufactured by researchers of Malek Ashtar University of Technology, was unveiled in a ceremony attended by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Vice-President for Executive Affairs Mohammad Shariatmadari and the country’s space officials. The satellite is being used for establishing safe and secured communications contacts in narrow band and will also provide SMS services both inside and outside the country. The Persian Gulf’s applications include exchange of text and digital audio messages among the users. The satellite is also capable of exchanging data among users in wireless networks.