Iran reported on January 28, 2013, that they had sent a rhesus monkey into space in a Pishgam rocket, and the animal was recovered safely after only a few minutes. They chose January 28 because it has a religious significance as the birthday of Mohammed.
Tanya Lemani, born March 17, 1945 in Iran, appeared in the original series of Star Trek. She played Kara, the belly dancer, who is found stabbed several times in the episode Wolf In The Fold, the 14th episode of the second season. This is one of my favorite episode. It was written by Robert Bloch, who wrote Psycho.
Chekov and Uhura do not appear in this episode.
She has also appeared in the video Star Trek: Of Gods and Men.
Iran's Aerospace Research Institute launched its first biological payload aboard Kavoshgar-3 (Explorer-3) February 3, 2010. It carried one rodent, two turtles, and several worms into sub-orbital space, and returned them alive back to Earth.
Iran launched its first domestically manufactured satellite Omid February 2, 2009, becoming the ninth country to do so. It was a 16" cube weighing about 60 lb. It was to monitor natural disasters since Iran is prone to earthquakes, and to improve its telecommunications.
Omid orbited for about seven weeks and re-entered Earth's atmosphere in April 2009.
Soyuz TMA-9 crew (L-R): Michael Lopez-Alegria, Anousheh Ansari, Mikhail Tyurin
Mission patch
Soyuz TMA-9, launched September 18, 2006, transported a tourist to the International Space Station and another back to Earth. Its crew consisted of Commander Mikhail Tyurin (Roscosmos) and Michael Lopez-Alegria (NASA). Anousheh Ansari, an Iranian-American engineer, was the first self-funded woman in space, the fourth overall self-funded space tourist, and the first Iranian in space.
Tyurin and Lopez-Alegria were part of Expedition 14. They returned to Earth in April 2007 with space tourist Charles Simonyi, the second Hungarian in space. Ansari stayed only 9 days aboard the ISS.
Soyuz TMA-8 crew (L-R): Marcos Pontes, Jeffrey Williams, Pavel Vinogradov
Mission patch
Soyuz TMA-8, launched March 30, 2006, carried members of Expedition 13 to the International Space Station. Its crew consisted of Commander Pavel Vinogradov (Roscosmos), Jeffrey Williams (NASA) and Marcos Pontes (first Brazilian astronaut).
Pontes spent about a week on the ISS and returned with the crew of Expedition 12 on Soyuz TMA-7.
Vinogradov and Williams stayed on the ISS until September 29 when they returned to Earth with space tourist Anousheh Ansari, the first Iranian in space and the first self-funded woman in space. Ansari arrived at the ISS about a week before on Soyuz TMA-9.
