(Image source: NASA / National Geographic)

BY STEVEN SPARKMAN

ANCHOR CHRISTY LEWIS

Last month, Iran officials secretively tried to reach a new milestone in their space program. They didn’t announce the test for several weeks. We’ll let Jay Leno tell you why.

“Well, this week we found out that Iran’s plan to launch a monkey into space failed -- failed miserably. What happened was President Ahmadinejad refused to get into the little capsule. So...”

President Ahmadinejad (who was not the mission’s astronaut), announced the monkey mission back in February. Iran launched a satellite in 2009, and sent turtles, worms, and rats into space in 2010. This was their next big step. A blogger for Jalopnik explains.

“Iran had planned to launch a monkey 75 miles up for a 20-minute ride, and apparently the Kavoshgar-5 rocket did take off a few weeks back. However, ‘the launch was not publicised as all of its anticipated objectives were not accomplished,’ an Iranian spokesman said, which is codespeak for ‘oops, our bad, sorry monkey.’”

Sadly, AFP confirms the unlucky monkey didn’t survive the failed operation. Space.com explains the lost monkey is a big hit to Iran’s lofty goals.

“Iranian space officials did not release details of the apparent launch failure on the agency's official website. The setback was apparently a major blow to Iran's space ambitions, as the nation hopes to one day launch humans to space and, eventually, the moon.”

The space program itself is attracting controversy. It takes powerful and precise rockets to send people into space, and a writer for Inquisitr says that kind of technology makes Iran’s enemies nervous.

“...Western opponents of Iran fear that their tests could be preparing them for ballistic missile testing which could send nuclear warheads to anywhere in the world they so desire.”

Iranian officials say they’ve put the monkey spaceflight program on hold indefinitely.