The satellite actually isn’t the most troubling aspect of the launch. No, that honor goes to the missile upon which the satellite was launched. The two-stage, 72-foot, 26-ton Safir rocket uses a modified version of the Shahab-3, a medium-range ballistic missile capable of traveling 1,200 miles.

NASA has posted the first orbital elements of the satellite and its third stage rocket body and, running the orbits backwards, they are totally consistent with a launch from the “Kavoshgar” launch site at 18:38 on 2 February 2009 (GMT). Both the satellite and the rocket body come together and pass over the launch site at that time…

Amateur satellite observers in the UK have have used the radio signals from 2009-004A to determine it is the satellite. Optical observations seem to indicate that the rocket body is considerably brighter (mag. 4.5) than the satellite (which varies between 5 and 7). This would seem to favor the two stage hypothesis: Iran has probably developed a more powerful fuel/engine combination for the second stage!

And now information on the rocket, via Hot Air, from Fast Company:

Safir’s name itself means “messenger,” and the rocket was built using Iran’s ballistic missile Shahab-3 technology as a first stage. It reportedly has a range of 1200 miles in its missile incarnation, so an advanced second stage could give the payload–or warhead–an intercontinental reach.

But with tracking systems showing an item in orbit, should we actually worry?

If the country has produced an orbital launcher, it’s got a de facto ICBM, albeit with an unknown carrying capacity. There would remain the complex matter of developing a payload that would act as a warhead.

More from Danger Room:

Space-watchers are already tracking two objects in orbit that appear to be the satellite and the final stage of the rocket. “In the face of world opposition and sanctions, Iran has joined a very exclusive club: those countries that have managed to orbit a satellite,” MIT’s Geoff Forden writes.

And even more from Global Security.