The Iranian Qased missile is mostly interesting for what it isn't

Yesterday the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced the launch of Iran's first military satellite, called the Noor, to an altitude of 425 km. According to their statement, accompanied by a video, it was launched using a three-stage satellite launch vehicle named the Qased, that uses liquid and solid propellant.

Every single detail visible in the published photographs and video indicates that the missile is some variant of the Shahab-3/ Nodong IRBM. This is a liquid-propellant missile with technology closely related to the notorious Scud missile. It uses relatively low-energy propellant (a kerosene and nitric acid mix) and is steered using thrust-vectoring vanes. The colour of the exhaust flame, including darker plumes, and even the noises it makes, of the turbopump starting before take-off, seem identical to a Shahab-3 variant. The booster appears to have relatively small stabilising fins, as used on other Iranian developments of the Shahab-3 such as the Ghadr-F, Ghadr-H and Emad. The first stage of Iran's first known launch vehicle, the Safir, is also based on the Shahab-3. It was used to launch Iran's first satellite, the Omid, into low-earth orbit back in 2009. While the transport vehicle of the Qasem is blurred in some of the images, it is visible in others and it is very similar to launch vehicles used with Shahab-3 variants and the Safir. The infamous satellite image of the aftermath of a missile exploding, tweeted by US president Donald Trump last year, also showed a similar vehicle. That missile reportedly was a Safir, but it may actually have been a Qased instead. The image on top shows the Safir, Emad and the Qased, scaled such that their diameters match. I cannot actually measure the Qased's diameter, to verify that is 1.25 m like the other missiles, but given all the other similarities, this does seem likely. That makes it smaller overall than the Safir.

There is another obvious difference between the Safir and the Qased: the Safir's two stages both have the same diameter, while the upper stage on the Qased clearly has a smaller diameter than the booster. The larger-diameter section clearly is a single stage, with an uninterrupted cable raceway that runs alongside. Onboard video shows the whole thing tumbling after stage separation. There is nothing to indicate that it has two upper stages, which would be needed to bring the total up to the claimed three. Judging from a lengthwise seam, about half the length of the smaller-diameter section on top is taken up by a payload shroud. That doesn't leave space for two upper stages, although a small pusher engine could be hidden under the cover. In any case, if the Qased launched a satellite at all, I expect that satellite to be tiny.

The Qased is mostly interesting for what it isn't. It is not some new advanced solid-propellant launch vehicle. Instead it seems to be a re-purposed liquid-propellant IRBM with a tiny second stage. It is also not a Simorgh; a much larger (supposed) satellite launch vehicle that so far seems to have only flown sub-orbital trajectories, rather than putting an actual satellite into orbit.