Iran unveils domestically built light booster rocket to launch satellites

Tehran: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has unveiled a domestically built satellite booster rocket, part of an ambitious space program that has worried Western powers because they fear the same technology used to launch satellites could also deliver warheads.

Officials say the light booster rocket, named Simorgh, can carry a satellite weighing 220 pounds (100 kilograms) up to 310 miles (500 kilometres) above the Earth.

Iran sent its first domestically made telecommunications satellite into orbit last year.

Ahmadinejad is to unveil three homemade satellites later Wednesday.

Tehran has said it needs satellites to monitor natural disasters in the earthquake-prone nation and improve its telecommunications.