FNA - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani endorsed approvals of the Supreme Council for Science, Research and Technology to prioritize a number of mega national plans in security and defensive fields.

The plans which have been approved at the 22nd meeting of the Supreme Council for Science, Research and Technology include indigenization and development of subsurface technologies, acquisition of the technology to design, build and test cold-start space carrier-engine, acquisition of the technology to design and launch a national cyber defense center, a comprehensive plan to develop the needed technologies to equip and update the radar systems of Iran's air defense system, a plan to develop the country's encoding science and technology, and a plan to develop technologies to build 100- to 150-seat passenger planes.

All executive bodies and training and research institutes are required to help with the implementation of the plans and the country's Planning and Budget Organization has been tasked with budgeting the projects.

Iran announced in 2013 that it aimed to fly its first Antonov-158 jointly built with the Ukrainian company.

The new air vehicle with a seating capacity of 100 passengers is the next generation of Iran-140 airplane.

After purchasing the production license for the Antonov-140 from Ukraine in 2000, Iran built its first Iran-140 passenger plane in 2003.

The first IRAN-140 aircraft was introduced by Iran in 2003. Five domestically-manufactured IRAN-140 planes were completed in October 2008 to increase the country's transportation capacity and upgrade the Iranian passenger fleet.

The IRAN-140 is a double-engine turboprop aircraft which can fly almost 1,865 miles before re-fuelling and its passenger model seats 52 people.