However, the other week I read an article stating Iran was rolling up its space program. In an article titled "Iran Just Cancelled its Space Program" (a pretty definitive title), the author states,
After six years of massive expenditures and lurid propaganda, on Jan. 9 Tehran shut down its troubled space program. The unceremonious cancellation occurred without notice in the Iranian press.It is possible that Iran is firing off the last of its rockets, as the previous author suggested at the end of his article. It also also possible that the space program has simply shifted among ministries and it is now under the defense ministry. This is not unusual. Just look at how the US space program is divided between NASA and the Air Force. NASA lost its shuttle years ago, but the Air Force is still operating its own shuttle on a variety of missions (none of which have been shared with the public).
As of today, the Iranian Space Agency website is still up and running. And until recently, Iran was still talking about manned space missions and sharing the cost of an space station with China. It seems we will need to wait and see, though the recent launch certainly indicates the country maintains the hardware it needs to jump back in at any time (assuming it jumped out of the space race).
