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Source: http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/IRAN01257.xml
Iran Set to Try Space Launch
[Aviation Week] Craig Covault - Iran has converted its most powerful ballistic missile into a satellite launch vehicle that "will lift off soon" with an Iranian satellite, according to Alaoddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission. U.S. agencies believe the launcher to be a derivation of the 800-1,000-mile-range Shahab 3 missile. The 30-ton rocket could also be a wolf in sheep's clothing for testing longer-range missile strike technologies. Orbiting its own satellite would send a powerful message throughout the Muslim world about the Shiite regime in Tehran. There are concerns in the West that space launch upgrades could eventually create an Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with a range of nearly 2,500 miles, giving Tehran the ability to strike as far as central Europe, well into Russia and even China and India. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency has told Congress that Iran may be capable of developing a 3,000-mile-range ICBM by 2015.