It’s the biggest escalation in the ballistic pet race since Albert the rhesus monkey: Iran says it has launched worms, two turtles and a rat into space.

The hapless bilaterians were bundled aboard the Kavoshgar-3, the third in Iran’s “explorer” series of rockets. Unlike previous launches, which have been accompanied by fairly grainy video, this latest endeavour was filmed from multiple angles, including several onboard cameras (see AP video, right).

The launch came on 31st anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, according to Iran’s news agency.

Where does this put Iran in the space race? Well it has already said it has launched a satellite (although Western officials dispute that claim). Moreover, the latest rocket looks too small to me to be a serious contender for putting turtles, or anything else into low earth orbit. Indeed most Iranian sources describe Kavoshgar-3 as carrying an experimental “capsule” rather than a satellite (although this may be a translation problem).

Watching that AP video however, it does look like Iran’s capabilities might be growing. If you skip ahead to around 0:50 you’ll see a mysterious masked scientist unveiling what the reporter describes as a “satellite booster rocket”. Whether this could be the upper stage of a more serious launcher is unclear to me, although I’m sure it won’t be long before the guys at Arms Control Wonk have a post up about it.

In a related story, a test of the United State’s missile defence system has ended in ignominious failure due to a radar glitch. The announcement is bad news for US deterrence but good news for Iranian rabbits and guinea pigs that might be headed for the final frontier.

Source: AP via YouTube