TEHRAN - Iran claimed Sunday that it had successfully tested a rocket into space. The announcement, made on state-run television, was unclear, but appeared to refer to Iran's efforts to launch commercial satellites into orbit.

Iran's Science and Technology and Defense ministries built the craft, the state-run television quoted Mohsen Bahrami, the head of Iran's Space Research Center, as saying.

Bahrami provided no other details beyond saying that Iran had successfully launched what he called a space rocket or missile.

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Iran in the past has announced that it wanted to be able to send into orbit its own satellites, including commercial ones. But it has revealed little information about the project.

In 2005, Iran launched its first such satellite in a joint project with Russia.

Iran hopes to launch four more satellites by 2010, the government has said, to increase the number of land and mobile telephone lines to 80 million from 22 million.

It also hopes to expand its satellite capabilities to increase the number Internet users to 35 million from 5.5 million in the next five years.