Iran and North Korea's Rocket Programs - Space Pod 3/31/15

So, Iran has revealed mock-ups of their human spaceflight capsule, and there are multiple reasons why we should take them seriously. This is your SpacePod for March 31st, 2015. To understand how Iran has gotten to the point of seriously working on a human spaceflight program, I would like to trace its origins. Like most rocket and space programs, it all began with Wernher von Braun's V2 rocket. During World War II, the Germans developed a V2 variant called the Wasserfall surface-to-air missile, or anti-aircraft missile, and it was about one-fourth the size of a normal V2 rocket. It was designed by Walter Thiel, and it used a hypergolic mixture of mostly nitric acid as its fuel. After the war, the Soviet Union recovered several V2 and Wasserfall rockets, and reverse-engineered them. The V2 was duplicated as the Soviet R-1 rocket, and the Wasserfall evolved into the R-11, better known as the Scud missile. The main innovation on the R-11 was its engine, the Isaev 9D-21. The main thing about this engine was that it had simpler plumbing, it was lighter, and it performed better than the German V2 engine. These innovations would be adopted and expanded by the Soviet Union, and used on almost all of their future rocket engines. Fast forward to 1979 or 1980, and North Korea obtained its first Scud missiles from Egypt. They proceeded to reverse-engineer the rocket so they could manufacture it themselves. North Korea's version became known as the Hwasong 5. In 1985, Iran acquired the Hwasong 5, and started its own production of the rocket under the designation of the Shahab 1. In the late 80s and early 90s, North Korea developed the Hwasong 6 to make minor improvements upon the design, and it was exported to and built by Iran under the name of the Shahab 2. At the same time the Hwasong 6 was being developed, North Korea was working on a larger upgrade they call the Rodong 1, which was in operation as early as 1993. The rocket is almost twice the size of a normal Scud missile, and it has an upgraded engine. Iran financed a large portion of the Rodong program, and in return produced the rocket as the Shahab 3 as early as 1998. Since then, Iran has produced several upgraded versions of the rocket, including a two-stage suborbital rocket, the Kavoshkar 1, and the two-stage orbital launcher Safir. Although North Korea was simultaneously trying to develop multi-stage rockets, between the two, Iran was actually the first to succeed at multi-staging, and they launched four indigenously produced satellites into low-Earth orbit. Their first was the Omid satellite, which was launched in February of 2009, followed by the Rasad 1 in June of 2011, the Navid in February of 2012, and the Fajr just recently on February 2nd of 2015. All of these satellites launched on either the Safir 1B or the Safir 2 rockets, and some of them may have even featured solid rocket strap-on boosters. It's kind of hard to actually get specific details out of Iran sometimes. Meanwhile, North Korea and Iran have been building bigger rockets that are very similar in design. Iran has been building the Simorgh rocket, which may or may not be the Safir 2, and North Korea is building their Unha family of rockets. It's unknown if Iran has actually launched their Simorgh rocket or not, but as for North Korea, they have launched their Unha rocket three times. Although the first two attempts were actually failures, they were able to successfully launch on their third attempt their indigenously produced satellite, which I can't pronounce, but which means Bright Star 3 or Load Star 3, unit number two, because the first one was launched on one of those previous failures. But this successful launch was launched on December 12th in 2012 and was successfully placed into low Earth orbit, but a very low Earth orbit, and it decayed after just a couple of days. This was the first time that North Korea launched its own indigenously built satellite. They have launched other satellites before, but on other providers' rockets. Probably not coincidentally, just a month and a half later, on January 30th, 2013, South Korea launched a satellite from their own soil for the very first time. It was launched on their Naro 1 rocket, which is actually mostly Russian built, but we'll talk about that another time. After North Korea's satellite launch, though, they were condemned by many nations, as well as NATO and the UN. And a lot of them claimed that they were breaking treaties, that they wouldn't develop ICBM technology, Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. North Korea's intentions have always been to have ICBMs, and launching a satellite for them is more of a prestige project than it is an actual scientific endeavor. Iran, on the other hand, seems to have a more serious agenda of utilizing satellites for scientific, communication, and observation purposes. They're even planning on eventually sending humans to space, and that can be gathered from all their animal testing that they've been doing. They've also expressed interest in cooperating with China on China's space station program. It should also be noted that Iran was one of the original 24 founding nations of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. And they've produced such documents as the Outer Space Treaty, the Astronaut Rescue Agreement, the Moon Treaty, and the treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in the upper atmosphere, in outer space, and underwater. All of that and the progress that they've made on their manned spaceflight program have convinced me, at least for now, that their intentions to send humans to space are genuine. I'm going to leave it at that for now. But the next time that you see me, we're going to talk about the progress that Iran has made over the years on their human spaceflight program. Until then, thank you very much for watching this SpacePod. My name is Michael Clark, and everyone please give a warm welcome to our newest space correspondent, Ariel Waldman. She made a really cool video about mapping supernovas with a 3D slicer, and you should definitely watch it. Tomorrow you're going to get an update from Lisa Stojanovski about the year-long mission at the International Space Station. But until then, I would love to know what you think about the Iranian space program, either below or on any of your favorite social media. This is a crowdfunded show, and if you're interested in helping us to bring you content like this, then please visit patreon.com slash tmro to find out more information about how you can become a citizen of tomorrow. Thank you again for watching this SpacePod. I know this was a very controversial subject that we talked about this time, but you have to remember that I'm biased. I do support every human spaceflight program, no matter who is behind it. And at least in the case of Iran, I wish them all the luck in the world.