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Satellite images show activity at two points as tensions rise in Iran’s bloody crackdown on protests across the country Iranian nuclear facilities bombed last year Israel and the United States, which may indicate that Tehran is trying to cover up efforts to salvage any material that remains there.
Images from PBC Planet Labs show that roofs have been constructed on two damaged buildings. isfahan and Natanz It is the first time satellites have detected significant activity at the country’s damaged nuclear facilities since Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June.
The coverings prevent satellites from seeing what’s happening on the ground – currently the only way inspectors can see from the ground. International Atomic Energy Agency These sites need to be monitored as Iran has blocked access.
Iran has not publicly discussed activities at either location. The United Nations watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, did not respond to a request for comment.
U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly asked Iran to negotiate over its nuclear program to avoid U.S. threats of a military strike over the country’s crackdown on protesters. The United States has moved the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and several guided-missile destroyers to the Middle East, but it is unclear whether Trump will decide to use force.
Experts who inspected the site said the new roof did not appear to be a sign of rebuilding from a severely damaged facility. Rather, they are likely part of Iran’s “efforts to assess whether key assets, such as its limited stockpile of highly enriched uranium, would survive an attack,” said Andrea Stricker, who studies Iran for the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which has been sanctioned by Tehran.
“They want to be able to recover whatever assets they can without Israel or the United States seeing that they survive,” she said.
Isfahan and Natanz are two important places in Iran
Before Israel launched a 12-day war with Iran in June, the Islamic Republic had three major nuclear facilities linked to its programme. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. However, in recent years Iranian officials have increasingly threatened to track down the bomb. The West and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran had an organized nuclear weapons program until 2003.
The Natanz site, about 220 kilometers (135 miles) south of the capital, is a mix of above-ground and underground laboratories that house much of Iran’s uranium enrichment activities.
Before the war, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran used advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium to 60%, which was only a short technological advance away from the weapons-grade 90% level. Presumably some of the material was at the site when the entire complex was attacked.
The plant, located outside the city of Isfahan, is primarily known for producing uranium gas, which is fed into centrifuges to be spun and purified.
The third site is Fordo, about 95 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of the capital, a hardened enrichment site beneath the mountains.
Israel first targeted the sites during last year’s war, followed by U.S. strikes using bunker-busting bombs and Tomahawk cruise missiles. The White House’s National Security Strategy, released in November, said the U.S. strike “severely weakened Iran’s nuclear program,” but specific details of the damage were difficult to obtain publicly.
Since the attacks, Iran has not allowed IAEA inspectors to visit the sites.
Rooftops seen in Isfahan and Natanz
The main above-ground enrichment building at Natanz is known as the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant. IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said at the time that Israel attacked the building on June 13, causing its “functionality to be destroyed” and “severely damaging” the underground hall housing the cascade centrifuges. On June 22, the United States launched a follow-up attack on an underground facility at Natanz, using destructive bombs that hit the facility and likely destroyed what remained.
Planet Labs PBC images show Iran began building a roof over the damaged factory in December. Work on the roof was completed by the end of the month. Iran has not publicly acknowledged the work. Natanz’s electrical system appears to still be compromised.
Iran also appears to be continuing excavations begun in 2023 at Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā (also known as “Kaw Mountain”), a few hundred meters south of the Natanz complex fence. Satellite images show increasingly larger piles of dirt being piled up during excavations. The country is believed to be building a new underground nuclear facility there.
In Isfahan, Iran began constructing a similar roof on a building near the northeast corner of the facility and completed the work in early January. Although the Israeli military said at the time that the attack on Isfahan targeted a site associated with centrifuge manufacturing, the building’s exact function was unclear. The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment about the building.
Meanwhile, images show that two tunnels leading to a mountain near the Isfahan facility have been filled with dirt, a measure Iran took before the June war to prevent missile attacks. The third tunnel appears to have been cleared of dirt and a new set of walls built near the entrance as an apparent safety measure.
Sarah Burkhard, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security who has long followed Iran’s nuclear facilities, said the roofs appeared to be part of an operation to “recover any remaining assets or rubble without letting us know what they got there from.”
Sean O’Connor, an expert at open source intelligence company Janes, also believes the purpose may have been “to conceal activity rather than to repair or rebuild the building for use”.
Other work continues in Iran
Earlier reports from the Associated Press showed that since the end of the war, Iran has been working to rebuild its ballistic missile program and rebuild the bases related to the program. These include work at the Parchin military base, southeast of Tehran.
In recent weeks, Iran has been working to rebuild a site in Parchin that the Institute for Science and International Security has named “Taleghan 2.” Israeli air strikes destroyed the site in October 2024.
Archives of Iranian nuclear data seized earlier by Israel allegedly showed that the building contained an explosion chamber and a special X-ray system used to study explosion tests. Such tests could be used to study the compression of uranium cores with explosives – required for implosion nuclear weapons.
Satellite photos show “Taleghan 2” has been under construction in recent months. Open source intelligence company Janes and the institute also took note of the construction.
“This has been quickly rebuilt,” said Lewis Smart, a Janes analyst who studies Iran’s nuclear program. “It’s being expanded to make it more resistant to penetration attacks and explosions. … A fairly large containment vessel is being put into the facility that can be used for high-explosive testing.”
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