Iran trumpeted another advance in the global space race yesterday, saying it had successfully hurtled a monkey into orbit for the second time this year as part of an ambitious programme aimed at manned space flight by 2020.
State television showed a rocket blasting off followed by footage of a red-shirted monkey, strapped snugly into a seat, staring blankly at people clapping to celebrate its safe return.
The report seemed to suggest the entire operation, from launch to return, took place yesterday morning.
Congratulating the scientists involved in the mission, the president Hassan Rouhani said the simian astronaut had been carried by a liquid fuel rocket – Iran’s first use of such technology. The monkey, named Fargam – a combination of the Farsi words for “auspicious” and “luck” – had returned to Earth, “safe and sound”, he tweeted.
Iran’s space programme has prompted concern among western and Arabian Gulf countries which fear it could be used to develop long-range missiles that could potentially be armed with nuclear warheads.
The UN Security Council has imposed an almost total embargo on the export of nuclear and space technology to Iran since 2007.
The Islamic Republic insists that both its atomic and space programmes are peaceful in nature and accuses the West of opposing them because it wants to deprive Iran, a fiercely independent country, of the latest advances in technology.
Tehran, for instance, says it wants its own satellites in orbit to monitor natural disasters in the earthquake-prone nation, improve telecommunications and expand military surveillance of the region.
Iran prides itself on its 2,500-year-old civilisation but is also keen to show that, despite punitive US-led sanctions, it is at the cutting edge of modern science and a technological hub for Islamic and developing countries.
The stated aim of Iran’s space programme is a manned launch by 2020. Mr Rouhani’s controversial and publicity-seeking predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claimed in February that he was “ready to be the first Iranian to be sacrificed by the scientists of my country and go into space”.
Iran frequently claims technological breakthroughs that are impossible to independently verify. In January, Tehran said it had sent a monkey to space for the first time, but the boast was called into question by before and after pictures of the animal that appeared to show two different monkeys.
This prompted international observers to wonder whether the animal had died in space. Iran insisted this was not the case, saying archive images of another monkey tested for its suitability for the mission had been released by mistaken.
In 2010, Iran successfully sent a rat, turtle and worms into space. But its first attempt to send a monkey up in a rocket failed in 2011. Fargam appears to have been far more lucky.
mtheodoulou@thenational.ae
