The Iranian authorities unveiled their latest space technology this month to coincide with celebrations of the 32nd anniversary of the Islamic revolution.

As well as showing off four satellites made in Iran, they also announced plans to send a monkey 120 kilometres into space and build a launch pad and a space research centre.

The country’s space programme got under way when the Shah was still in power, and was continued by the Islamic regime that replaced him, even through the difficult years of war with Iraq in the 1980s.

Russia, China and Italy provided the know-how for satellite production and four major Iranian universities currently have space technology programmes.

The Iranian Space Organisation was set up in 2004, and within five years the country had sent Omid, the first satellite to be entirely manufactured in Iran, into orbit.

The launch allowed Tehran to claim to have joined the club of eight countries capable of putting satellites in space, and it now plans to launch one a year.

There is talk of a manned space shuttle by 2022.