Iran relaunches space ambitions

TEHRAN — Iran's on-off space programme has received a boost after a recent satellite launch was seen to annoy Washington, with Tehran dusting off plans for a manned mission, perhaps with Moscow's assistance.

"Ten skilled pilots are currently undergoing difficult and intensive training so that two of them... can be selected for the space launch," the head of the science ministry's aerospace research centre, Fathollah Omi, told the state broadcaster last week.

He said the plan was to put humans into suborbital space "in less than eight years".

"In preliminary talks with Russia's main space company, we have agreed to cooperate on this important project and we are waiting for their definitive answer."

Russia has not confirmed the talks, although deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees its space programme, visited Tehran two years ago to discuss potential collaboration.

The Islamic republic's scientists are also celebrating the fact that two monkeys they fired into space in 2013 have recently given birth to their first baby.

"Aftab and Fargam were two monkeys sent separately into space and returned alive. Researchers are studying the effect of a space trip on their baby," said Omi.

Iran's space programme has progressed in fits and starts.

It has sent a turtle, mouse and worms into space, and after the successful voyage by the monkeys, then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced he would like to be first to go up on an Iranian rocket.

But he was out of office a few months later, and the whole programme appeared to have been mothballed earlier this year due to financial constraints.

"It was estimated that putting a man into Earth orbit would cost around $15 billion to $20 billion over 15 years. As a result, the budget cannot be allocated for this project," the deputy head of Iran's Space Organisation, Mohammad Homayoun Sadr, said in May.