🇮🇷☢️ New satellite imagery reveals intense construction activity at Iran's Pickaxe Mountain site suspected of housing Iran's enriched uranium stockpile

Multisource imagery analysis of Pickaxe Mountain and the Natanz Nuclear Facility from 2020 to the present reveals a clear three-phase activity signature across the five key points of interest and the roads connecting them, indicating a site that has shifted from active excavation toward probable internal construction and continued exterior reinforcement. This analysis utilizes six years of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) change detection with Sentinel-2 optical change detection and very-high-resolution (VHR) Airbus imagery from July 9, 2026, as well as a Satellogic image from August 9, 2026.

Together, these images reveal more road activity at Pickaxe Mountain in 2026 than at any point in the site’s history. There is a clear surge in construction activity in 2026 that corresponds to the raising and hardening of the portal accesses, paving of the internal road network, reinforcement around access areas, and the flattening and removal of excavation spoil.

This assessment can neither refute nor substantiate the Israeli intelligence claim that Iran moved centrifuges into Pickaxe Mountain. The continuous construction, the absence of an increased internal security posture, and the lack of observed nonconstruction vehicles and equipment suggest the underground facility is not yet capable of enrichment work, if that is the intended purpose. Further analysis of daily activity would be needed to establish the site’s pattern of life beyond its current construction footprint.

Pickaxe Mountain is a deeply buried granite fortification, and it will be difficult to destroy the facility even with the heaviest non-nuclear U.S. munitions, such as the GBU-57 Massive Ordinance Penetrator. While military strikes may degrade or temporarily disable Pickaxe Mountain, continuously bombing Iranian nuclear infrastructure is unsustainable, illustrating the need for a verifiable diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear challenge.

🔗 https://www.csis.org/analysis/satellite-imagery-pickaxe-mountain