A rocket was fired into space at the remote desert centre in northern Iran to mark the opening, the second time the Islamic republic has attempted to fire a rocket into space.

"We witness today that Iran has taken its first step in space very firmly, precisely and with awareness," declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as he gave the order for the launch.

"The evil and the dominant system's most important instrument is humiliating people and nations by making them think that they are incapable," he added, referring to the West.

The space centre includes an underground control station and launchpad which will be used to fire an Iranian satellite named Omid (Hope) into space, the official news agency IRNA reported.

"Building and firing a satellite is a major and valuable achievement," said Ahmadinejad.

The opening of the space centre comes as Iran has been trumpeting its progress in its nuclear programme, which the West fears could be used to make atomic weapons.

The emphasis on Iran's development of domestic space technology is highly reminiscent of its insistence on developing its own nuclear capabilities, which has led it into a four-year standoff with the West.

Ahmadinejad has made Iran's scientific development one of the main themes of his presidency, asserting the country has reached a peak of progress and no longer needs to depend on foreign states for help.

"No power can overcome the Iranian nation's will," said Ahmadinejad. "The world must know that the Iranian nation will preserve the principles and ideals of the Imam (revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini) until the end."

Iran has been pursuing a space programme for the past few years and in October 2005 a Russian-made Iranian satellite was put into orbit by a Russian rocket.

But Omid would be Iran's first domestically manufactured probe and the first to be launched in Iran.

State television broadcast pictures of the launch of the rocket, which resembled Iran's longer-range missile Shahab-3, which has a range of 1,300 to 1,600 kilometers (800 to 1,000 miles).

The rocket blasted off after a countdown to cries of Allahu Akbar! (God is Greatest), from the space centre in a desert region in the northern Semnan province.

The pictures showed the rocket heading out towards space but no information was given on what height it reached. A small probe was seen falling back to earth on a parachute but it was not clear what it contained.

IRNA said the Omid satellite would be launched in the next Iranian calendar year which begins on March 20. "This is the Islamic republic's first locally made satellite which will be set at a low orbit," it said.

The Russian-launched satellite Sina-1 was Iran's first -- and so far only -- probe to be launched into space, and was described by the Iranian press at the time as being for research and telecommunications.

Iran has said it plans to construct and launch several more satellites over the next three years.

In February 2007, Iran said it fired a rocket into space for the first time for research purposes. Monday's launch was the first reported since then.

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