Iran to launch new satellites, Ahmadinejad says
By DPA, IANSMonday, February 7, 2011
TEHRAN - Iran’s president said Monday the country would launch several new locally built satellites within the next 13 months, state-media reported.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that from March 2011 to March 2012 Iran would witness several satellite launches.
On the occasion of the 32nd anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, Ahmandinejad presented prototypes of four new satellites scheduled to be among the ones to be launched.
Iran launched its first satellite into orbit in February 2009. The following year, it unveiled three new communications satellites, plus a domestically produced carrier, Simorq, which can take a 100-kg satellite into orbit.
Tehran has rejected Western charges that its aerospace projects have military aims and the West of trying to distort Iran’s scientific achievements as aggression.
The US and Israel said the same technology could be used to carry ballistic missiles, but Iran described the project as an “ultra-modern scientific achievement”.
