Iran appeared to be readying for a space launch as satellite images showed a rocket on a rural desert launch pad, just as tensions remain high over Tehran’s nuclear programme. The images from US firm Maxar Technologies on Tuesday showed a launch pad at Imam Khomeini Spaceport in Iran’s rural Semnan province, the site of frequent recent failed attempts to put a satellite into orbit. One set of images showed a rocket on a transporter, preparing to be lifted and put on a launch tower. A later image on Tuesday afternoon showed the rocket apparently on the tower. Iran did not acknowledge a forthcoming launch at the space port and its mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, its state-run IRNA news agency in May said that Iran would probably have seven home-made satellites ready for launch by the end of the Persian calendar year in March 2023. A Defence Ministry official also recently suggested Iran soon could test its new solid-fuelled, satellite-carrying rocket called the Zuljanah. It was not clear when the launch would take place, though erecting a rocket typically means a launch is imminent. Mystery accident at Iran military site kills engineer Asked about the preparations, State Department spokesman Ned Price said that the US urges Iran to de-escalate the situation. “Iran has consistently chosen to escalate tensions. It is Iran that has consistently chosen to take provocative actions,” Price said. A Pentagon spokesman said the US military “will continue to closely monitor Iran’s pursuit of viable space launch technology and how it may relate to advancements in its overall ballistic missile programme”. “Iranian aggression, to include the demonstrated threat posed by its various missile programmes, continues to be a top concern for our forces in the region,” the spokesman said. Over the past decade, Iran has sent several short-lived satellites into orbit and in 2013 launched a monkey into space. The programme has seen recent troubles, however. There have been five failed launches in a row for the Simorgh programme, a type of satellite-carrying rocket. A fire at the Imam Khomeini Spaceport in February 2019 also killed three researchers, authorities said at the time. The launch pad used in Tuesday’s preparations remains scarred from an explosion in August 2019 that even drew the attention of then-President Donald Trump. He later tweeted what appeared to be a classified surveillance image of the launch failure. Satellite images from February suggested a failed Zuljanah launch earlier this year, though Iran did not acknowledge it. The successive failures raised suspicion of outside interference in Iran’s programme, something Trump himself hinted at by tweeting at the time that the US “was not involved in the catastrophic accident”. Sanctions-hit Iran signs 20-year cooperation deal with Venezuela There’s been no evidence offered, however, to show foul play in any of the failures, and space launches remain challenging even for the world’s most successful programmes. Meanwhile, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in April 2020 revealed its own secret space programme by successfully launching a satellite into orbit. The Guard launched another satellite this March at another site in Semnan province, just east of the Iranian capital of Tehran. Judging from the launch pad used, Iran likely is preparing for the Zuljanah test launch, said John Krzyzaniak, a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Krzyzaniak earlier this week suggested a launch was imminent based on activity at the site. The rocket’s name, Zuljanah, comes from the horse of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Iranian state television aired footage of a successful Zuljanah launch in February 2021. The launch preparations also come as the Guard reportedly saw one of its soldiers “martyred” in Semnan province under unclear circumstances over the weekend. Iran’s Defence and Armed Forces Logistics Ministry, however, later claimed the man worked for it. Iran, which has long said it does not seek nuclear weapons, previously maintained that its satellite launches and rocket tests do not have a military component. US intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran abandoned an organised military nuclear programme in 2003. However, Iran’s likely preparations for a launch come as tensions have been heightened in recent days over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Israel claims Iran stole classified UN nuclear watchdog documents Tehran last week condemned as “unconstructive” a move by the International Atomic Energy Agency to censure the country for failure to cooperate over its nuclear programme. It also disconnected some of its cameras at nuclear sites, a move the IAEA warned could deal a “fatal blow” to negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. “We believe negotiations and diplomacy are the best ways to reach the final point of the agreement,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said during a joint press conference with his Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in Tehran. Talks began in April last year to bring the United States back into that landmark agreement, after Trump withdrew in 2018 and left it hanging by a thread. The negotiations also aim to lift sanctions on Iran and bring it back into compliance with nuclear commitments it made to world powers as part of the deal. But the ever-delicate dialogue has been stalled since March. Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse