Deputy Science Minister Mohammad Mehdinejad-Nuri was very circumspect and avoided saying outright either that the missile firing was a failure or that the monkey died in the process.
The Iranian Students News Agency quoted him as saying, “The Kavoshgar-5 rocket carrying a capsule with a live animal was launched during Shahrivar [August 23-September 22]. However, the launch was not publicized as all of its anticipated objectives were not accomplished.”
If the main objective—sending the monkey into space and retrieving it alive—had been achieved, the Iranian Space Agency surely would have announced it.
The Iran Times reported two weeks ago that Hamid Fazeli, head of the Space Agency, said October 3 that Iran had postponed its long-publicized plans to launch a monkey into space and did not know when that launch would occur. (See Iran Times of October 7, page two.)
The Iran Times said the strange announcement about a launch Fazeli said weeks earlier was imminent had prompted speculation the monkey had been launched as planned but that the test had failed and the regime was reluctant to admit to that. The government has never broadcast a space launch live and has never admitted to a failure. Last week’s announcement did not admit a failure either, just the non-accomplishment of all objectives.
The Kavoshgar is a sounding rocket that is fired straight into the sky. When it runs out of fuel, it plunges back to earth. The Kavoshgar carries a capsule that can send animals into space. The capsule then comes back down to a soft-landing—if all works correctly—under a parachute.
The Space Agency released photos of the returned empty capsule from the first Kavoshgar, dented but intact. It has not released photos of any of the other Kavoshgar capsules, suggesting they did not make it back intact.
The Kavoshgar is designed to reach an altitude of about 120 kilometers (75 miles) before plunging back to earth. The entire fight takes no more than 20 minutes.
The monkey launch was described as part of Iran’s announced plans to put a man into space by 2019.
