High-resolution commercial satellite imagery from July 4 and 5, 2020, shows that the Iran Centrifuge Assembly Center (ICAC) at the Natanz Enrichment Site has suffered significant, extensive, and likely irreparable, damage to its main assembly hall section. This new facility, inaugurated in 2018, was critical to the mass production of advanced centrifuges, in particular the assembly of rotor assemblies, the rapidly spinning part of the centrifuge and its most crucial component. An annex to the building was intended to assemble electrical components of centrifuges, including motors, another important component of centrifuges. While early reporting from Iran suggested that a fire was “limited” and restricted to a “shed under construction,” more recent Iranian admissions are stating that the damage was “significant.”

Satellite imagery further shows that the damage appears to have been caused by a large single point detonation, possibly creating a crater that is centered at the northwest corner of the ICAC. That explosion, evidently causing or coinciding with a fire, may well have involved an explosives device (that is also consistent with other open source reporting).

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Read the full report at the Institute for Science and International Security.