Iranian science and defense ministries to study and analyze the technology of U.S. drone RQ-170 0301121

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World Air Force News - Iran
 
 
Iranian science and defense ministries to study and analyze the technology of U.S. drone RQ-170.
 
Senior Iranian officials announced here in Tehran on Monday that experts of the country's Science and Defense Ministries are likely to launch joint cooperation to study and analyze the technology of the US drone that was downed by Iran early in December. (Source FNS Iranian press agency)
     
Senior Iranian officials announced here in Tehran on Monday that experts of the country's Science and Defense Ministries are likely to launch joint cooperation to study and analyze the technology of the US drone that was downed by Iran early in December. (Source FNS Iranian press agency)
A photo released by the official website of Iran's Revolutionary Guards in December 2011 shows Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, right, looking at what Iranian officials say is an American RQ-170 Sentinel high-altitude reconnaissance drone that crashed in Iran.
     
"We have had some meetings with the Defense Minister about the kind of cooperation that the academic community can have with our country's Armed Forces on the US spy drone and once we come to the final conclusions we will be ready for cooperation," Iranian Minister of Science, Research and Technology Kamran Daneshjou told FNA on Monday.

"The country's universities have informed the Science Ministry that they are ready to study and analyze the US stealth drone and demanded the Science Ministry to inform the Defense Ministry of their preparedness in this regard," he added.

Iran first announced on December 4 that its defense forces had downed the aircraft through a sophisticated cyber attack.

The drone is the first such loss by the US. US officials have described the loss of the aircraft in Iran as a setback and a fatal blow to the stealth drone program.

The RQ-170 has special coatings and a batwing shape designed to help it penetrate other nations' air defenses undetected. The existence of the aircraft, which is made by Lockheed Martin, has been known since 2009, when a model was photographed at the main US airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

The unmanned surveillance plane lost by the United States in Iran was a stealth aircraft being used for secret missions by the CIA, US officials admitted almost a week after Iran captured the plane.

The aircraft is among the highly sensitive surveillance platform in the CIA's fleet that was shaped and designed to evade enemy defenses.