Iran brings forward plan for manned space flight

Iran plans to launch a manned spacecraft in seven years' time, two years earlier than its previous target, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday.

"In the near future we will be sending a communications probe into space whose lifespan will be one year," the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted him as saying in a live conversation on state television in the western city of Hamadan. "The government has undertaken plans so that we would be sending a manned spacecraft into space in seven years." (Reuters)