Shahed-129
Iran's reusable medium-altitude, long-endurance ISR and strike drone, designed for persistent surveillance and guided-weapon employment from a runway-based platform.
An Iranian reusable medium-altitude, long-endurance uncrewed aircraft built for persistent intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and strike missions.
Overview
The Shahed-129 is an Iranian medium-altitude, long-endurance uncrewed aircraft used for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and armed missions. Unlike the one-way Shahed-131 and Shahed-136, it is a runway-launched aircraft intended to return after a sortie. Its configuration combines a rear-mounted pusher propeller, an electro-optical sensor turret and underwing weapon stations, giving Iran a reusable platform for sustained observation and guided strikes.
Iranian and secondary reporting attributes approximately 24 hours of endurance, a range or operational radius near 1,700 km, and a ceiling around 7,300 m to the aircraft. These figures have not been independently demonstrated in public. The Iran Primer drone roster places the Shahed-129 among Iran's principal surveillance and combat UAVs, while Critical Threats Project describes its reported specifications and operational history.
Development
Iran unveiled the Shahed-129 in 2012 and announced that it had entered service in 2013. The Iran Primer records the aircraft as part of Iran's expanding military drone inventory. The Critical Threats Project technical profile associates it with long-endurance surveillance and strike missions.
Public sources do not establish the date of the aircraft's first flight, the size of its production run, or a reliable unit cost. The extent to which development benefited from foreign components or design influence is also not publicly established. Iranian announcements and imagery confirm the broad configuration, but they do not independently validate the full claimed mission radius, endurance, payload integration, or satellite-control capability.
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