Asia

Home page

Asia

Iran to put satellite into orbit

12 April 2013 01:52 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said the country is to put a satellite into orbit within a year, APA reports quoting Press TV.

Ahmadinejad made the comments, addressing people in the provincial capital of the Semnan province in the north of Iran, Fars News Agency reported on Thursday.

“The big Iranian satellite, which is currently being built by domestic experts, will be placed into the Earth’s 36,000-kilometer orbit within a year,” he said.

The Iranian president noted that “many [Iranian] universities are currently building satellites….”

Iran launched its first domestically-manufactured satellite, Omid (Hope), in 2009. The Islamic Republic sent its first bio-capsule containing living creatures into space in February 2010, using the domestically-manufactured Kavoshgar-3 (Explorer-3) carrier.

Iran is one of the 24 founding members of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, which was set up in 1959.