Iran, whose population is one-third of that of the United States, claims it will send a monkey into space this year. It also has recently said it has found a nano-medicine cure for cancer and a generic drug to treat multiple sclerosis.

As recently as two months ago, Tehran said it was putting a hold on the project to send a monkey into space by 2020.

Now, Hamid Fazeli, director of the Iranian Space Agency, says the monkey will be sent into space by August of this year.  

“This is actually a prelude to preparing Iran for sending a human astronaut into space before 2021,” Fazeli told the official government IRNA news agency.

Fazeli said that Iranian scientists are coming up with a new bio-capsule as un upgrade to one launched into space last winter.

The number of technological and military advances in Iran has soared in recent months. The Ahmadinejad regime claimed to have tested a long-range missile that can reach U.S. bases in the Middle East as well as Israel, but wire services quoted analysts as saying that the film of the launch appeared to be of a rocket with far less range.