TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior Iranian space research official said the country plans to make more progress in space biology and intends to develop the needed capability to send three astronauts into the space in a single mission in future.
"We have planned to gain the power to carry
three astronauts into the space in one carrier, but our first launch will be done with just one astronaut," Head of the Space System Research Center Mohammad Ebrahimi said, addressing a forum in Tehran on Wednesday.
"Also, sending one or two trained astronauts (into the space) and their safe and secured return by the help of solar and optical communication systems is among our other goals of our plan" for progress in the field of space biology science, he added.
Ebrahimi announced in February that Iran has drawn the necessary plans to send man into the space.
He said that Iran has devised a two-staged plan to send man to the space by 1397
(March 2018 - March 2019).
"To send man into the space we have planned two stages of
sub-orbital and
orbital flights," he said, and explained that in suborbital flights, the astronaut will have a free fall to come back to the Earth.
Ebrahimi noted that Iran has drawn plans to continue sending biocapsules which can carry living creatures into the space before sending its first astronaut to space by
2018.
On January 28, the Defense Ministry's Aerospace Industries Organization announced that it has sent a monkey into the space on the back of Pishgam (Pioneer) explorer rocket, and that it has brought back and recovered the living cargo.
The Aerospace Industries Organization said it had sent the living creature into space aboard an indigenous biocapsule as a prelude to sending humans into space.
The Aerospace Industries Organization said the capsule was sent to an orbit beyond 120km in altitude and carried out telemetry of the environmental data records.
The explorer rocket was launched by the Aerospace Industries Organization and it returned to the Earth after reaching the desired speed and altitude, and the living creature (monkey) was retrieved and found alive.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had announced in 2010 that Iran plans to send astronauts into space in 2024. But, later he said that the issue had gone under a second study at a cabinet meeting and that the cabinet had decided to implement the plan in 2019, five years earlier than the date envisaged in the original plan.
Fars News Agency :: Research Official: Iran Plans to Send Astronauts into Space for Space Biology Studies