Press TV - Iran has launched a modern airport radar system near the capital Tehran which allows for more accuracy in terminal navigation operations and drastically improves the safety of the flights.

The radar site was opened on Sunday by Mohammad Eslami, Iran’s transport and housing minister, in Kushk-e-Bazm region located more than 40 kilometers southwest of Tehran.

The new system is equipped with some of the most modern airport navigation appliances in the world, including a Monopulse Secondary Surveillance Radar (MSSR), which reduces almost to zero the chances for so-called garbling in ground systems when they seek to decode signals from several approaching aircraft.

The radar covers an area of 250 nautical miles (more than 400 kilometers). It will work along primary radars, known as PSR, which normally cover an area of around 120 kilometers, to expand the Terminal Maneuver Area covering major airports inside and near Tehran, including the Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKA).

Taking more than six months to launch on a high-altitude region, Kushk-e-Bazm is the second radar site in Iran and in the Middle East that has become fully operational under the direct watch of domestic technicians and experts.

It comes as Iran is facing some crippling sanctions by the United States which have hampered its ability to import sophisticated systems needed in the aviation industry.

While opening the center, Eslami said that Iran was approaching a state of self-sufficiency in the production and operation of the radar systems. He even said that the country could find foreign markets for the export of its surveillance and navigation appliances in the near future, mainly thanks to a new generation of start-ups that have made “considerable progress” in the field.