A few months ago Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant published a very interesting article describing how, according to secret Iranian documents obtained by the newspaper, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was attempting to procure encrypted, Chinese Tiantong-1 satellite phones due to increasing distrust of Iranian communications infrastructure in the light of the Iran-Israel war. In this first blogpost of a 2-part series, the previously unexplored Tiantong-1 satellite system and its security aspects are illuminated.