Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced plans to send a man into space by 2017.
"The plan is in line with Iran’s space agency program to produce and place in orbit a spacecraft..," the President told the IRNA state news agency, while touring the western Iranian city of Hamedan.
Last year Iran’s Aerospace agency launched a twelve year project aimed at sending an astronaut into space by the year 2021.
Ahmadinejad said Thursday, the date had been pushed forward in response to pressure from Western powers over Iran's nuclear program.
If all goes according to plan, it will prove “ the country's dominance in the field of space science, “ he said.
In February, Iran test fired the Kavoshgar-3 (Explorer 3) rocket, which carried a rat, turtle and worms.
In 2009, Iran launched a domestically made satellite and put it into orbit for the first time. It has said the Omid (Hope) satellite was launched for peaceful telecommunications and research purposes.
After orbiting for three months, Omid successfully completed its mission without any problems. It completed more than 700 orbits over seven weeks and reentered the earth's atmosphere on April 25, 2009.
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