Iran renews plan to send monkey to space
2013-01-15 16:31
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Lonely Planet Iran
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Tehran - Iran will try again to send a live monkey into space after a previous
attempt failed in 2011, media reports said on Tuesday quoting the space chief,
who gave a launch date of before mid-February.
"The final tests for launching the capsule, carrying a monkey, have
been completed," Iran's Space Organisation chief Hamid Fazeli said in
remarks reported by the Mehr news agency.
Fazeli said the launch would take place during a 10-day period starting on
31 January, which marks the 34th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution,
the state television website reported.
Iran has already sent small animals into space - a rat, turtles and worms -
but its previous attempt to send a live monkey into space failed in 2011, which
was announced without explanation.
Fazeli said the monkey project would help Iran "implement the
preparations of sending a man into space", which officials say is
scheduled for 2020.
The previous project envisaged launching a capsule with life support using
the Kavoshgar-5 rocket to an altitude of 120km for a 20-minute sub-orbital
flight.
Iran says it has successfully launched three satellites - Omid in February
2009, Rassad in June 2011 and Navid in February 2012.
But it postponed, without explanation, the planned launch in May of another
satellite called Fajr.
Iran's space programme deeply unsettles Western nations, which fear it could
be used to develop ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads they
suspect are being developed in secret.
Tehran has repeatedly denied that its nuclear and scientific programmes mask
military ambitions.
