Iran's 'Space Program' May Be a Cover for Developing Better Ballistic Missiles

​Earlier this week, Iran showed off a capsule ​designed to send humans to space, saying it's going to try to launch a manned mission this year. Meanwhile, a widely cited report suggests Iran is shuttering its space program entirely. So which one is happening?

The answer is probably "neither." There have been no official indications from inside Iran that the country is shutting down its space program, and we have every reason to believe it's trying to bulk up its space capabilities, perhaps as a guise to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles. But it probably has no intention to send a human into space anytime soon.

Last month, Jassem Al Salami of the War is Boring blog on Medium (which is generally rock solid) reported that Iran unceremoniously canceled its space program, "without notice in the Iranian press." A follow up story earlier this month, published after Iran launched a new satellite, doubled down on that idea.

"We explained that Tehran would probably launch a few of the space agency's remaining rockets, mostly for propaganda purposes," Salami wrote. I contacted Salami to ask him if he'd revised his thinking on the state of the space program given the announcement of a manned mission, but did not hear back.

Experts in the area say that, if anything, Iran's investment in space appears to be increasing, and a speech given yesterday by president Hasan Ruhani indicates that space is a priority for the country.

If "a nation that can build satellites of varying types, can launch these satellites, can control them," Ruhani said, "then that nation has entered the world."

Ruhani also said that the "science of space is both strategic and applied and is also intended for the development and prevention of threats."

Ruhani and Iran have said that the recent launch was a purely civilian enterprise, and it just showed a mockup of a manned spacecraft that it hopes to send to space sometime this year. Meanwhile, this month's launch was managed by Iran's defense department.

"I find that telling," Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the ​American Enterprise Institute think tank who has ​followed the Iranian space program since its inception and who analyzes the program for the US military, told me.

Rubin believes there are two main reasons Iran is pushing space development.

First, the country would like to become a launch service and carrier for developing countries that want space capabilities but don't want to work with the United States, and, second, it would like to ​continue developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, the technology of which isn't all that different from launching a satellite.

"Frankly, I don't think they're willing to give up their ballistic program," he said.

"As the developing world goes, they're at the top. You can think of them as the valedictorians of the summer school class," he added. "They can say, why go to Russia or France to launch something when you can go to Iran? It's an attractive selling point for many in the Islamic world."

So, why pretend as though they're going to send a human being to space? Iran ​may or may not have sent two monkeys to space in recent years—there have been conflicting reports—but developing a life support program and ensuring a human can make it back to Earth safely is an entirely different proposition.

But Rubin says it's about par for the course for Iran. The country has a history of making grandiose claims that it can then use to defend itself against international inquiry. In June of 2012, for instance, the country ​said it was developing nuclear submarines. There's no indication that it's having any success there, but it does give the country an excuse to continue enriching uranium if it wants, Rubin said.

"Launching a human doesn't seem plausible unless they're planning to launch and kill a political prisoner or something," he said. "You can't take these grandiose claims at 100 percent face value, but there's often a kernel of truth there."

In any case, Iran's space program does not at all appear to be dead. Instead, it has been reshuffled the program to a separate government agency. The US Army, at least, is going to be advised to take the country seriously. Rubin shared with me a forthcoming analysis he wrote for the Army's Foreign Military Studies Office, in which he says Iran "now has the capacity to design and build a new generation of satellites."

"Seldom, however, are civilian satellites launched without an advance purpose and it is likely that the Iranian government does have military ambitions for its space program," he wrote. "The technology to launch satellites into space is dual use—the same technology can potentially lead to the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles."