Iran has successfully sent a monkey into space, just over a year after their first attempt at simian space flight failed, which resulted in the untimely death of the banana-loving pilot.

Without disclosing the location of the launch site, Iranian State TV claimed that the ape was sent 120 kilometres into space in an Explorer rocket, and returned safely.

The successful launch marks a major step forward in Iran’s ambitious march toward nuclear world war manned space flight, which it hopes to achieve by 2020.

[Source : Times Colonist]