VIDEO: Iran: First Satellite For Peaceful Purpose

Iran announced the satellite`s launch earlier on Tuesday at a time of persistent international tension over its nuclear programme.

Iran said it had launched a domestically made satellite into orbit for the first time on Tuesday, a move likely to worry Israel and Western powers further about Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

The launch of the Omid (Hope) research and telecom satellite was hailed by Iran as a major step in its space technology timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the U.S.-backed shah.

The long-range ballistic technology used to put satellites into orbit can also be used for launching warheads, although Iran says it has no plans to do so.

"Dear Iranian nation, your children have placed the first indigenous satellite into orbit," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a televised message, adding the launch was successful.

Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said Omid was orbiting earth. The ISNA news agency quoted him as saying: "We have established communications with it and the necessary information has been received."

Sending the Omid into space is a message to the world that Iran is "very powerful and you have to deal with us in the right way", an Iranian political analyst said.

Senior officials from six world powers -- the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and China -- will meet on Wednesday to discuss the nuclear row with Iran. It will be their first meeting since U.S. President Barack Obama took office.

Obama has signalled that he will pursue direct talks with Tehran but has also warned Iran to expect more pressure if it does not meet the U.N. Security Council demand to halt atomic work the West fears has military aims.

Iranian state television showed footage of a rocket blasting off from a launchpad and lighting up the night sky as it streaked into space.

"With God's help and the desire for justice and peace, the official presence of the Islamic Republic was registered in space," Ahmadinejad said.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki also told reporters during a visit to Ethiopia that the satellite had peaceful aims.

"IRANIAN SPUTNIK"

But Andrew Brookes of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think-tank in London said the news would prompt concern in Israel and elsewhere in the region.

"They will think that this civilian capability will soon be transformed to a military reconnaissance and intelligence gathering capability," he said.

Isaac Ben-Israel, a former head of The Israel Space Agency, told Reuters in Jerusalem: "If they managed to fire a satellite into space it means they can also reach Western Europe."

Iran is under U.N. and U.S. sanctions because of suspicions about Tehran's nuclear plans.

The Islamic state, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, says its nuclear work has no military goals but is limited to generating electricity to meet domestic needs.

Ahmadinejad has set tough terms for talks with Obama's administration, saying it must change policy not just tactics towards Tehran and apologise for past "crimes" against Iran.

Tehran said in February last year it had tested an Iranian made rocket as part of its satellite programme, a move the United States described as "unfortunate".

In August, Iran said it had put a dummy satellite into orbit with a domestically made rocket for the first time. U.S. officials said that launch had ended in failure.

Tal Inbar, head of the Space Research Centre at Israeli think-tank the Fisher Brothers Institute, said Iran was only the ninth country in the world capable of both producing a satellite and sending it into space from a domestically made launcher.

"We should regard this satellite as the 'Iranian Sputnik'," he told Israel radio, saying Iran was the first to join this club after Israel in 1988. "The main value is ... propaganda."

Western experts say Iran rarely gives enough details for them to determine the extent of its technological advances, and say that Iranian technology largely consists of modifications of equipment supplied by China, North Korea and others.

The television broadcast said the Omid would return to earth with data after orbiting for one to three months. Iran already had a satellite in orbit but the Sina-1 was launched by a Russian rocket in 2005, said the television.

VIDEO:  Iran launches satellite