Iran officially opened its new Imam Khomeini National Space Center with a bang, according to state media reports on July 27, by successfully launching its two-stage Simorgh rocket into space. Though Iranian state television showed footage of the rocket's liftoff, neither it nor other Iranian media offered details of the mission profile or of the Simorgh's payload. Iran previously has put several small satellites into orbit using a different rocket, but the Simorgh is designed to carry a satellite weighing up to 250 kilograms (550 pounds) into an orbit 500 kilometers (310 miles) high. Whether the launch was a suborbital test of one or both of the Simorgh's stages, and what payload, if any, the rocket might have been carrying, awaits confirmation. The launch had been in the works since at least late January, when Iran scrubbed a launch of the Simorgh for an unspecified reason.