Iran to send living creature into space

Head of the Iranian Space Agency (ISA) says the country will launch the first bio-capsule carrying a living creature into space within the next two months. Hamid Fazeli told reporters on Wednesday that the national project will be carried out by sending a monkey into space using a new bio-capsule. “The results of this space journey will get our country one step closer to putting humans into space,” he added. According to Fazeli, ISA scientists are designing and manufacturing a new bio-capsule an example of which was launched into space last winter. Since it returned to Earth, we have been trying to upgrade it by “solving its problems and [boosting] its technical features,” he noted. Fazeli added that launching the new bio-capsule in the next two months will be Iran's first step towards dispatching human beings into space, which will be first sent to an altitude of 250-300 kilometers above the Earth. The head of ISA had announced on July 7, 2011, that Iran was set for the launch into space of a bio-capsule taking a living creature into orbit, and two more satellites before the end of the Iranian calendar year (ending on March 20, 2012). Iran successfully launched its first indigenous bio- capsule into space by Kavoshgar 4 (Explorer 4) satellite carrier. ISA's aerospace researchers carried out the launch, which aimed at testing the function of programming systems and subsystems on March 15, 2011. The launch platform, engine, electronic and telemetry systems, the separation system between the rocket and its payload, telemetry ground stations and imaging data, ranging, and bio-capsule were tested in that mission. Kavoshgar 4 and three other satellites were unveiled by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in February 2011.