TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran plans to send a satellite carrier rocket into space soon.
Iranian state TV quotes Ahmadinejad as saying the Persian nation will soon “launch a rocket, which has 16 engines and will take a satellite some 430 miles” into space.
Ahmadinejad spoke to a group of Iranian expatriates in New York, where he is attending the U.N. General Assembly.
Iran is working on a space program. Earlier this month, it announced that a joint Iranian-Chinese research satellite was sent into orbit by a Chinese-made rocket.
Last month, Iran tested a rocket it hopes will one day carry an all-Iranian research satellite. In 2005, Tehran sent its first commercial satellite into space on a Russian rocket.