Iran to send more satellites to orbit

Tehran, Jun 18: Iran announced it plans to send three more home-made satellites to orbit in coming months. The announcement came after Tehran successfully sent its second domestically-made satellite named ''Rasad'' (Observation) into orbit, redisplaying the country's independence in its space program.

Speaking to the Islamic republic news agency, Head of the Iranian Space Agency (ISA) Hamid Fazeli said that following successful launch of Rasad, the satellites of Kavoshgar 5 (Explorer 5) that will carry animals, Fajr and Navid will be launched into space.

The official added that Kavoshgar 5, with a weight of 285-kg, will be launched in Mordad (fifth month of the Iranian calendar, July 22 - August 22).

Rasad, designed and built by ISA, was launched by the Safir-e-Rasad satellite carrier on Wednesday.

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.

Iran announced in February that it plans to unveil and send two recently-built satellites into space in the near future.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had also earlier announced that the country plans to send a home-made measurement satellite into orbit in the near future.

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 problem.

It completed more than 700 orbits over seven weeks and reentered the Earth's atmosphere on April 25, 2009.

After launching Omid, Tehran unveiled three new satellites called Tolou, Mesbah II and Navid, respectively.

PTI (FNA)