TEHRAN – The head of Iran’s Space Agency said that Iran manufactures satellites domestically at low cost.
“It is not correct to think that running Iran’s space industry is expensive,” Hassan Salarieh said.
“We are one of the cheapest countries in the world when it comes to building satellites, and this reality reflects the efforts of our country’s elite and the development of indigenous technology,” he added.
Decades of sanctions have made Iran self-sufficient in all areas, including the development of satellites, drones and missiles.
Despite the challenges, Iran has rapidly developed satellite, missile, and drone technology in recent years. Iran’s pursuit of this technology is facilitated by its relative simplicity and low cost. For example, Iranian drones such as the Shahed 131 and Shahed 136 cost only around $20,000 each, making them relatively affordable amid economic sanctions.
Salarieh emphasized that the costs of other countries’ space industries, including the United States, Russia, and European countries, are much higher than Iran’s. “There are a number of countries that have modern space industries, but the cost and type of investment in their space industry is simply not comparable to Iran,” he explained.
He said that Iran continues to move forward on the path to domestic technology development, unrivaled by any other country.
“We have our own technologies and we develop them based on our own human resources,” he said.
He explained that labor costs in Iran are much lower compared to other countries.
Salarieh emphasized that since Iran develops space technology locally, it can be achieved at a much lower cost.
The space secretary emphasized that Iran designs and produces many of its satellite subsystems domestically and imports little expensive foreign technology.
In the past few years, Iran has launched several domestically produced satellites into space, and more are awaited. The country also makes use of domestically produced launch pads in many cases. Last year, an Iranian Space Agency official told the Tehran Times that the country’s ultimate goal is to secure customers such as Russia and the United States in the space field.