Iran to send to a monkey into space

Along with 4 new satellites:

Iran: 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 satellite, state television reported on its website on Thursday.

“The Kavoshgar-5 rocket will be launched during the month of Mordad (July 23 to August 23) with a 285-kilogramme capsule carrying a monkey to an altitude of 120 kilometres (74 miles),” said Hamid Fazeli, head of Iran’s Space Organisation.

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 towards sending a man into space, which Tehran says is scheduled for 2020. Iran sent small animals into space - a rat, turtles and worms- aboard its Kavoshgar-3 rocket in 2010.

Monday, AFP