A senior Iranian aerospace official says the country plans to launch an advanced satellite to take high resolution wall maps and aerial photos of locations around the globe as seen from space

A senior Iranian aerospace official says the country plans to launch an advanced satellite to take high resolution wall maps and aerial photos of locations around the globe as seen from space.

Head of Satellite Technical Support Department at Tehran's University of Science and Technology, Hossein Bolandi, said late on Saturday that Iran would send the Zafar (Triumph) satellite into space in 2012, IRNA reported.

The Iranian aerospace official added that Zafar satellite weighs 90 kilograms and will be placed in elliptical orbit of 500 kilometers in radius.

Zafar will have a lifespan of one year and six months and will capture images with a resolution of 80 meters and then transmit them to stations on earth.

Bolandi said the control system of Zafar satellite is three time more accurate than that of Navid (Herald) satellite.

Navid is a domestically-manufactured 50 kilogram satellite, which can take pictures in low altitudes of about 250 to 375 kilometers from earth. President of the Science and Technology University Mohammad-Saeid Jabalameli announced the launch of the Navid satellite on Saturday.

According to Jabalameli, Navid has been successfully tested and will be delivered to the launch center to be put into orbit in the next three to four months.