Iran Steps Up Space Program

News.com.au reports:

Iran plans to send a live monkey into space in the summer, the country's top space official said after the launch of the Rassad-1 (Observation-1) satellite, state television reported today.

"The Kavoshgar-5 rocket will be launched during the month of Mordad [July 23 to August 23] with a 285-kilogram capsule carrying a monkey to an altitude of 120 kilometers ," according to Hamid Fazeli, the head of Iran's space organization.

In February, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled a space capsule designed to carry a live monkey into space along with four new prototypes of home-built satellites the country hopes to launch before March 2012.

At the time, Fazeli touted the launch of a large animal into space as the first step toward sending a man into space, which Tehran claims is scheduled for 2020.

Iran sent small animals into space - a rat, turtles and worms - aboard its Kavoshgar-3 rocket in 2010.

Fazeli also announced plans for the launch in October of the Fajr reconnaissance satellite, with "a life span of a year and a half and to be placed at an altitude of 400 kilometers," the website reported.

Yesterday, the Islamic Republic successfully put its Rassad-1 satellite into orbit.