Iran plans to launch the first satellites in its new Soleimani constellation of narrowband satellites by the end of the Iranian year in March 2026, the head of the country’s space agency said.
Hassan Salarieh, head of the Iranian Space Agency, told the Tasnim news agency that the Soleimani constellation will be Iran’s first narrowband satellite network.
“In the initial phase, nearly 20 satellites will be built and placed in orbits with different inclinations to provide narrowband communications aimed at developing Internet of Things services,” he said.
The constellation is named after Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force - the foreign arm of the Revolutionary Guards -- who was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.
According to Salarieh, test launches of prototype satellites will begin this year, with some placed in orbit to carry out preliminary checks.
The main production phase of the satellites will begin in 2025, with operational launches of the constellation expected to start in early 2026 and continue into 2027. “Technical challenges and delays are natural in the space industry,” he said, but added that progress so far was “satisfactory.”
The constellation is being developed by a consortium of government and private entities. Salarieh said design work began in late 2023, and that many subsystems and components are now under construction.
The announcement comes weeks after Iran launched its Nahid-2 telecommunications satellite aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome.
Salarieh has since said a second version of Nahid-2 will be launched aboard Iran’s domestically developed Simorgh rocket, underlining Tehran’s efforts to expand its independent launch capacity.
Iran is also developing heavier launchers, including the Sarir and Soroush classes, and is expanding its Chabahar spaceport to reduce reliance on foreign facilities.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has separately conducted suborbital tests of its , most recently in July, weeks after the 12-day war with Israel.
Western governments have repeatedly voiced concern over Iran’s satellite launches, warning that the same rocket technology can be used for ballistic missiles. Tehran says its space program is peaceful.
“If tariffs are not adjusted, operators will not be able to invest, and improving internet quality will be impossible,” Alireza Rafiei said on Monday.
In the near future, he said, Iranians should expect scheduled internet outages just like the country's routine power cuts.
Iran’s internet crisis, marked by declining quality, frequent disruptions, and GPS interference, has persisted for two months since the 12-day war with Israel when blackouts rocked the country, affecting everything from tracing the whereabouts of loved ones to online banking and GPS services for businesses dependent on them.
Consumption has steadily increased while tariffs have remained frozen for years, even as electricity, equipment, and operational costs have multiplied, Rafiei added. Without higher rates, he argued, operators cannot invest in upgrades.
Iran ranks among the worst for connectivity
A report by the Internet and Infrastructure Commission of Tehran’s E-Commerce Association last week ranked Iran 97th out of 100 countries in terms of quality, describing the network as “unreliable, restricted and slow.”
Citizens across Iran have told Iran International of widespread issues, saying outages and slow speeds add to the pressure of power cuts, water shortages, inflation, and unemployment.
Government officials have blamed the June war with Israel for worsening connectivity. On July 15, government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani linked new restrictions to security decisions taken during the conflict, while Communications Minister Sattar Hashemi acknowledged poor quality service earlier in August.
Interference was partly introduced after reports that GPS signals were being used to guide drones, he said.
However, the E-Commerce Association report said that disruptions had been recorded long before the conflict and remain unresolved even two months since its end.
Power cuts and GPS disruptions
Constant electricity blackouts make matters worse as operators cannot recharge backup systems in time, Rafiei said.
“The batteries we use, even in the best case, only work 45 minutes to one hour,” he explained. “With repeated outages, sometimes we don’t even get the chance to recharge them.”
If two hours of daily power cuts accumulate, it means “two percent of sites are permanently off, creating extraordinary dissatisfaction,” added Rafiei.
The crisis has been compounded by widespread GPS disruptions.
Since the war, users continue to report erratic location shifts of hundreds of kilometers, disrupting services such as ride-hailing apps and logistics businesses.
The Iranian government continues to promote its long-term national internet project, designed to tighten control over information flows.
