TEHRAN – Iran on Tuesday unveiled its first-ever hypersonic missile, Fattah, which it said can penetrate missile defense systems and will give it a military edge.
President Ebrahim Raisi and senior commanders of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) attended an unveiling ceremony here, with the domestically made black missile visible.
The missile can move at a speed of up to Mach 15 (5,145 meters per second), has a range of 1,400km and features a moveable secondary nozzle and employs solid propellants that allow for high maneuverability.
Officials said Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has chosen the name, which roughly translates to “the opener”.
Hypersonic missiles move at five times the speed of sound or greater and are maneuverable, making them difficult for defense systems and radars to target.
The United States, Russia, China and North Korea are believed to be the only countries to have successfully tested hypersonic missiles, but exact details of the weaponry remain scant.
The national television said Iran’s Fattah missile can target “the enemy’s advanced anti-missile systems and is a big generational leap in the field of missiles”.
“It can bypass the most advanced anti-ballistic missile systems of the United States and the Zionist regime, including Israel’s Iron Dome,” it said.
Ballistic missiles fly on a trajectory in which anti-missile systems can anticipate their path and intercept them. Tuesday’s event showed a moveable nozzle for the Fattah, which could allow it to change trajectories in flight. The more irregular the missile’s flight path, the more difficult it becomes to intercept.
IRGC aerospace chief Amir Ali Hajizadeh announced news of the development of the hypersonic missile last November at an event marking the anniversary of the martyrdom of Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, known as the father of Iranian missile technology, who lost his life after an explosion at a missile base in 2011.
In November, Hajizadeh said the new missile represents a “generational leap” for Iranian missile technology as it can maneuver within and outside the earth’s atmosphere and penetrate any missile defense system.
“The Fattah cannot be destroyed by any other missile due to how it moves in different directions and at different altitudes,” he was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
President Raisi said Iran has boosted its deterrence power that now contributes to the security and sustainable peace in the region.
“Some may ask ‘what is the purpose of manufacturing missiles?’ They are for deterrence, for defense,” he noted.
“We build missiles so that we do not suffer from aggression by the enemies and so that we have the power that the enemies would not even think of an act of aggression against the Islamic Republic.”
Raisi said defense and missile industries have become indigenous in Iran, adding the
country’s missile power means that the region will be safe from villains and foreign aggressions.
Therefore, Iran’s missile power conveys “a message of security to the people of the region. Its message to those who are thinking about attacking Iran is that the Islamic Republic is a powerful country and that its might is to support the Iranian nation and the world’s oppressed”, he added
The IRGC last month successfully tested a new ballistic missile with a range of 2,000km.