TEHRAN: Iran plans to send a live monkey into space in the summer, the country's top space official said after the launch of the Rassad-1 satellite, state television reported on its website, Thursday. “The Kavoshgar-5 rocket will be launched during the month of Mordad (July 23 to Aug. 23) with a 285-kilogram capsule carrying a monkey to an altitude of 120 kilometers (74 miles),” said Hamid Fazeli, head of Iran's Space Organization. In February, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled a space capsule designed to carry a live monkey into space, along with four new prototypes of home-built satellites the country hopes to launch before March 2012. On Wednesday, the Islamic republic successfully put its Rassad-1 (Observation-1) satellite into orbit 260 kilometers above the Earth. – Agence France