TEHRAN, Iran – A gray-tufted monkey strapped in a pod resembling an infant’s car seat rode an Iranian rocket into space and returned safely, officials said Monday in what was described as a step toward Tehran’s goal of a manned space flight.

The mission also touched on concerns that advances in Iran’s rocket expertise could be channeled into military use for long-range weapons that might one day carry nuclear warheads. Iran says it does not seek atomic weapons.

Additional Photos

Scientists in Iran tend to a monkey prior to a space launch Monday. According to a brief report on state TV, the monkey was sent up to a height of 72 miles on board a rocket dubbed Pishgam, or Pioneer in Farsi. The Associated Press

Launching a live animal into space — as the United States and the Soviet Union did more than a half-century ago in the infancy of their programs — may boost a country’s stature. But John Logsden, a space policy professor emeritus at George Washington University, said Iran’s achievement should draw no concern.

“A slight monkey on a suborbital flight is nothing to get too excited about,” he said. “They already had the capability to launch warheads in their region.”

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the United States had no way to confirm the monkey’s voyage, but that it was concerned by the reports because “any space launch vehicle capable of placing an object in orbit is directly relevant to the development of long-range ballistic missiles.”

The U.N. Security Council has expressly forbidden Iran from such ballistic missile activity, Nuland said.

In June 2010, the Security Council banned Iran from pursuing “any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.”

With its ambitious aerospace program, Iran has said it wants to become a technological leader for the Islamic world.

It’s not the first time Iran has announced it had rocketed a live creature out of the Earth’s atmosphere. The country sent a mouse, a turtle and some worms into space in 2010, officials said.

But the purported successful voyage of the small monkey put Iran among just a handful of nations that have sent a primate into space in a mission seen as a precursor of human spaceflight. No name was given for the monkey.

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