Iranian government officials admitted Sunday that an attempt to place a small Earth-imaging satellite into orbit was unsuccessful, the fourth consecutive launch failure for the country’s space program.
China led the world with 34 orbital launch attempts in 2019 — including two failures — followed by 22 flights from Russian-operated launch pads and 21 satellite delivery missions originating from U.S. spaceports, all of which were successful.
An Iranian Simorgh rocket launch carrying an Earth observation spacecraft faltered before reaching orbit Tuesday after analysts used imagery from commercial U.S. satellites in recent weeks to track preparations for the mission.