Iran Plans to Launch Second Monkey into Space Within A Month

The Iranian Space Agency announced on Saturday its plans to launch a second monkey in to space by the end of November. The monkey will be blasted into space aboard a liquid fuel carrier.

The plans of launching a second monkey were made by the Iranian Space Agency deputy head Hamid Fazel, reports local newspaper Jomhuri Eslami. They plan on sending animals into space as test- runs until their first human launch in 2018.  These "animal astronauts" are helping scientists decide the possibility and safety of manned space missions.

Well, this is not the first time that ISA is launching animals in space. Last month, news about plans of Persian cats being launched into space went viral. But people  have been skeptical about these plans as Iran has been accused of faking its space missions. But PETA was quick enough to respond to this announcement and wrote:

"Anyone who has ever shared a home with a cat knows that cats are complex individuals with personalities who experience pain, fear and love in the same ways that we do," PETA stated, Huffington Post reported. "Iran's archaic experiment, seemingly straight from the playbook of Wile E Coyote, is a throwback to the primitive techniques of the 1950s,"

According to Press TV, The Islamic Republic of Iran successfully launched a monkey into space on a suborbital flight that safely returned to Earth. Apart from the monkey, they have sent rats, turtles and worms aboard the Kavoshgar-3 rocket.

In regard to the latest launch, the Jomhuri Eslami newspaper cited Fazeli saying, "The second live animal will be ready within a month to be sent into space," However, the official refrained from offering a specific date for the launch.

But considering the country's notoriety in faking its space-mission history, people aren't sure about the authenticity of  these announcements.

Iran has never justified any delays in past mission launches nor provided any specific reasons. But this time, the interim chief of Iran's Space Organisation, Akbar Torkan, has blamed the financial issues of the country and has even claimed Iran to be under harsh Western-led international sanctions.

"The decrease in the country's total revenue, and thus the budget, has impacted our space-related activities," Torkan was quoted as telling the official IRNA news agency.

This year the country successfully launched two satellites into orbit namely Harbinger in Space and Navid-e Elm-o Sanat. They also launched the orbiter - Rasad (observer).