Further Links Between North Korean & Iran’s Missile Program Uncovered

It looks like North Korea’s activities helping the Iranian military is continuing to expand:

An open-source intelligence publishing group says North Korea may be helping Iran build new rocket-launch facilities.

IHS Jane’s said Friday that a new rocket-launch pad was spotted by satellite in the city of Semnan some four hours east of the Iranian capital of Tehran. According to the London-based intelligence group, analysis suggests that Iran has been collaborating with North Korea to build the launch pad.

Jane’s said Iran made public its “Simorgh” space-launch vehicle (SLV) on February third but did not make public the location of the rocket’s launch complex.

Jane’s was quoted as saying that the platforms seen on the new gantry tower resemble those seen on the gantry tower at North Korea’s new launch pad at Tongchang and a drainage pit 170 meters in front of the pad also mirrors one at Pyongyang’s new west-coast launch site.

The group also said that the first stage of the Simorgh strongly resembles the North Korean Unha-Two, with four clustered engines and nearly the same dimensions.  [KBS Global]

You can read more about North Korea and Iran’s military cooperation here, here, and here.

I went on Google Earth and did a little exploring around the Semnan area in Iran and was able to located the launch facility supposedly constructed by the North Koreans:

This launch facility is located way out in a very isolated desert area:

Here is the lonely base camp that I imagine must suck to be stationed at:

Here is the actual launch site itself:

Here are two launch sites from the North Korea and judging from the Google Earth imagery they actually don’t like all that much a like:

Can any readers make out obvious similarities from the Google Earth imagery because I sure can’t.