TEHRAN, 09 March 2022, (TON): State media reported that Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched a second reconnaissance satellite into space, just as world powers awaited Tehran’s decision in negotiations over the country’s tattered nuclear deal.

State television identified the launch as taking place in its northeastern Shahroud Desert, without specifying when.

However, it came as Iran’s top diplomat at the monthslong talks suddenly flew home late Monday for consultations, a sign of the growing pressure on Tehran as the negotiations appear to be nearing their end.

The Guard said “the Noor-2 satellite reached a low orbit of 500 kilometers (310 miles) above the Earth’s surface on the Qased satellite carrier, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. It described the Qased, or Messenger in Farsi, as a three-phase, mixed fuel satellite carrier.”

According to media “it is a great achievement that we can put our eyes in the sky again and look at the Earth from space.”

Footage aired on state television showed the rocket taking off from a truck-based launcher on a concrete pad in the desert. Features of the site shown in the footage, analyzed by The Associated Press and compared to regional satellite photos, correspond to a launch site nearly 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the city of Shahroud in Iran’s rural Semnan province.