Tehran, Iran, June 20
By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:
Iran says it is ready to launch its Tir and Mehr probes to test Iranian satellites at the suborbital level.
The Science Ministry's Development Council's new regulation has paved the way for the Aerospace Research Center to find its legal place, Fathollah Ommi, head of the research center said.
He noted that as the result of the new regulation, the launch of suborbital satellite has become possible, ISNA news agency reported June 20.
Accordingly, we have designated the Mehr and Tir probes for suborbital experiments which will be carried out if there is any entrepreneur, he said.
Ommi said suborbital tests reduce the costs of launching satellites.
He pointed out that the council has passed a budget of 26 billion rials (about $892,000) to be given to the research center.
"The money needed for launching each satellite is about 100 billion rials (about $3.4 million) whereas we can do suborbital tests with 10 billion rials," he said.
The Fajr satellite was sent into the orbit on the back of the home-made Safir-e Fajr launcher on Feb. 2.
Iran said the satellite will be used in the fields of shipping, transportation, agriculture, and meteorology.
Iran launched its first indigenous satellite, Omid (Hope), in 2009, and also sent its first bio-capsule containing living creatures into space in February 2010, using the indigenous Kavoshgar-3 (Explorer-3) carrier.
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