Iran Wednesday successfully tested a new locally built satellite rocket named Kavoshgar 3, state-media reported. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also unveiled Wednesday the new domestically produced carrier engine Simorq, which can take a 100-kg satellite into orbit.

The event came on the 31st anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution. Iran launched its first satellite into orbit in February 2009, propelled by the Safir 2 rocket. On Wednesday, it unveiled three new communications satellites, named the Tolou, Mesbah 2 and Navid.

Tehran has rejected Western charges that the country's aerospace projects had any military aims. It accused Western powers of trying to distort Iran's scientific achievements as aggressive.

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".