Iran confirms it is building space center

Vahidi, in comments carried by the official IRNA news agency, said the first satellite to be launched from the new center will be the Tolo. It will be carried into orbit by the Iranian-made Simorgh light booster rocket, he said.

Vahidi didn't say where the new facility is located. It has been named after the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who died June 3, 1989. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke Saturday at Khomeini's mausoleum on the eve of the death anniversary.

Iran already has a major satellite launch complex near Semnan, 125 miles east of Tehran, and another space center - a satellite monitoring facility - outside Mahdasht, about 40 miles west of the Iranian capital.

"Some 80 percent of the actual construction of the new space center has been completed," Vahidi said, adding that the facility will send "satellites from Iran, the regional countries and the world of Islam into orbit in the near future."

Iran's decades-old space program is a key aspect of its efforts to achieve technological prowess similar to that of world powers. In Feb. 2010, Iran announced it had successfully launched a menagerie of animals - including a mouse, two turtles, and worms - into space on a research rocket.

Iran launched its first commercial satellite in 2005 on a Russian rocket in a joint project with Moscow, which is said to be a partner in transferring space technology to Iran.