President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran is working on a three-stage rocket to carry a satellite 1,000 kilometres (more than 600 miles) into space, Fars news agency reported yesterday.
"The country's scientists are working on a three-stage rocket that will take us to 1,000 kilometres," Ahmadinejad, quoted by Fars, told a local television in the western city of Hamedan.
He said the rocket's engines would have a thrust of between 120 and 140 tonnes, four times greater than the rocket thrust used to launch Iran's first satellite into space in February 2009.