Iran has just completed conversion of a powerful ballistic missile into a satellite launch vehicle. But the 25-30-ton rocket could be a wolf in sheep's clothing to test longer-range Iranian missile technologies.

The Bush administration will likely view the vehicle as a rogue rocket developed in a cabal of Iran and North Korea.

The new launcher has recently been assembled and "will lift off soon," says Alaoddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission.

Boroujerdi made the remarks this month during a speech before a group of religious students and clerics in the city of Qom near where Iran has conducted some of its ballistic missile tests.

If the Iranians are successful with the space launch program, it will have political and technological ramifications in both the U.S. and the Middle East (AW&ST Nov. 29, 2004, p. 36). "It would move the Iranians from the junior varsity into the big leagues," one U.S. analyst said then.

"Ultimately, their space program aims to orbit reconnaissance satellites like Israel's 'Ofek,'" says Uzi Rubin, former head of the Israel Missile Defense Organization.

In a report for an Israeli think tank, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Rubin says Iran could adapt the satellite launcher into a longer-range intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). "Remember the impact on the U.S. of Russia's launch of Sputnik," his report says.

"In 2006, the Iranian political leadership seems to have moved beyond the needs of self-defense and is now talking about global power projection," says Rubin, who oversaw development of the Israel Arrow anti-ballistic missile system.

The launcher could be one of two configurations: a derivation of the liquid-fueled 800-1,000-mi.-range Shahab-3 (see photo, left), or possibly a version of the solid-propellant 1,800-mi.-range Ghadar 110, of which the Iranians have released few if any photographs.

A Shahab-3 or Ghadar 110 warhead fired from central Iran could reach Israel, Saudi Arabia, the entire Persian Gulf region and as far west as southern Turkey.