[caption id="attachment_74080" align="alignright" width="180"]
Iran launched its first domestically-produced satellite Omid (Hope) via Safir (Ambassador) carrier (shown) into orbit in 2009.[/caption]An Iranian aerospace official says the country plans to send its first indigenous telecommunications satellite into space by March 2018.
Based on the [countrys] Strategic Plan, Iran is scheduled to put its telecommunications satellite into [geostationary Earth orbit] GEO by 2018, Head of the Iranian Space Research Center (ISRC) Hassan Karimi said on Thursday.
Among the priorities of Irans scientific road map has been to develop the technology to send humans into space and put satellites into orbit, he said.
Iran successfully launched its first home-made data-processing satellite Omid (Hope) into orbit in 2009.
As part of a plan to develop its space program, Iran also successfully put into orbit its second satellite, dubbed Rassad (Observation in June 2011. Rassad's mission was to take images of the Earth and transmit them along with telemetry information to ground stations.
Iran also sent its domestically-developed Navid-e Elm-o Sanat (Harbinger of Science and Industry) satellite into orbit in February 2012. The records made by the telecom, measurement and scientific satellite could be used in a wide range of fields.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the 24 founding members of the United Nations' Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space which was set up in 1959.
By Press TV
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