Tehran, February 04: Iran announced on Wednesday it has successfully launched a research rocket carrying a mouse, two turtles and worms into space – a feat President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said showed Iran could defeat the West in the battle of technology.
Ahmadinejad also unveiled the model of a light booster rocket that is being built and three new, Iranian-built satellites, touted as the latest in the country’s ambitious space programme.
The launch of the rocket Kavoshgar-3, which means Explorer-3 in Farsi, was announced by Defence Minister Gen Ahmad Vahidi to mark the National Day of Space Technology.
It comes a year after Iran sent its first domestically made telecommunications satellite, called Omid, or Hope, into orbit for 40 days.
The Iranian space programme has worried Western powers, which fear the same technology used to launch satellites and research capsules could also deliver warheads.
Iran’s state TV broadcast images on Wednesday of officials putting a mouse, two turtles and about a dozen creatures that looked like worms inside a capsule in the rocket, which appeared to be about 3m long, before it blast off.
Vahidi gave no details on the research and there was no information on what experiment the animals would serve on board. The report also did not disclose when or where the launch took place.
—Agencies