In a milestone for Iran’s space sector, a space tug domestically designed and manufactured by Iranian experts and technicians has been launched into space aboard a homegrown satellite launch vehicle (SLV).

According to The Iran Project, The Saman-1, along with a CubeSat and a research payload, was successfully sent into space from the Imam Khomeini Space Launch Terminal, southeast of Semnan, on Friday morning using a Simorgh launcher, PressTV reported.

The payloads were placed in an orbit around the Earth, with an apogee of 410 kilometers and a perigee of 300 kilometers.

Simorgh is a two-stage SLV with liquid fuel developed by the Iranian Ministry of Defense.

In its eighth launch, the Simorgh set a new record for the liftoff of payloads. During this multi-phase mission, it successfully placed the Saman-1 orbital transfer block and two other research payloads, weighing nearly 300 kilograms, into orbit.

Designed and developed by technicians from the Iranian Space Research Center (ISRC), the Saman-1 system is designed to place satellites in higher orbits, reducing costs and eliminating the need for large launch vehicles with high fuel consumption.

The space tug was test-launched in October 2022. Reflecting on the system, Hassan Salaryieh, chief of Iran’s space agency said that the system "means a quicker and smoother process of obtaining the orbital point synchronized with the Earth once a satellite elevates its orbital height from the geostationary orbit to the operational one.”