TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran announced that it plans to send a home-made measurement satellite into orbit in the near future.
“Iran’s measurement satellite will be launched into space from an Iranian launch-pad and will have an Iranian exchange station and control station,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday in a ceremony to mark the ‘National Youth Day’ in Iran.
Ahmadinejad further noted Iran’s plans for sending astronauts into space in 2024, and said that the issue has gone under a second study at a recent cabinet meeting and that the cabinet has decided to implement the plan in 2019, five years earlier than the date envisaged in the original plan.
Iran has recently taken wide strides in aerospace. The country sent the first biocapsule of living creatures into space in February, using its home-made Kavoshgar-3 (Explorer-3) carrier.
Omid (hope) was Iran’s first research satellite that was designed for gathering information and testing equipment. After orbiting for three months, Omid successfully completed its mission without any problems. It completed more than 700 orbits over seven weeks and reentered the earth’s atmosphere on April 25, 2009.
