Iranian Defense Minister Ahmed Vahidi confirmed the launch of what he
termed a new rocket. He did not provide details.
"The first biocapsule of living creatures from Iran was sent into the
space on the back of Kavoshgar-3 carrier," Vahidi said.
In 2009, Iran conducted the first successful space launch of its Omid
satellite with an indigenous rocket, Safir-2. Officials said Kavoshgar-3,
meant to transfer telemetric data, live video and flight and environmental
analysis, was designed and assembled in a project overseen by the Defense
Ministry.
The latest rocket launch took place during Iran's annual celebration of
the 1980-88 war with Iraq. Earlier, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled the
Simorgh rocket, described as a light indigenous space-launch vehicle.
"[Iranian] scientists will be sent into the space and they will observe
the universe from there," Ahmadinejad said.
Officials said Simorgh was capable of carrying a 100-kilogram payload up
to an altitude of 500 kilometers. They said the liquid-fuel Simorgh was
designed for inexpensive launch of small low-earth orbit reconnaissance
satellites.
The 27-meter Simorgh was said to weigh 85 tons and employs a cluster of
four engines. The total thrust of the engines was reported at up to 143
tons.
"Simorgh is different from Iran's first home-made satellite carrier
Safir both in length and diameter, and has been designed to carry the new
generation of Iranian satellites into the orbit," the semi-official Fars
News Agency said.
Teheran also plans to launch several telecommunication satellites over
the next two years. They were identified as Tolou, Mesbah-2 and Navid, all
of them said to have been produced in Iran.
