Posted on June 2nd, 2008 by Mastermind  •  Filed under: Uncategorized

Located in the Iranian desert, the Natanz uranium-enrichment facility has been shrouded in secrecy. Many of the buildings there, visible in the aerial image from September 2002 on the far left, are now out of sight, buried underground, near left. The site is also protected by anti-aircraft guns and barbed wire.

In cavernous underground halls roughly half the size of the Pentagon, rows of Iran’s first generation of machines, known as the P-1, which was based on a Pakistani design sold on the nuclear black market. The temperamental machines broke down frequently in the early days. One Iranian study traced the failures to centrifuge assembly when technicians, working with bare hands, inadvertently left behind clusters of microbes. That minuscule weight was enough to throw the whirling machines off balance and cause them to malfunction.

In the background is a silvery tank that holds tons of uranium hexafluoride, a highly toxic gas fed into the centrifuges for enrichment. The material, solid until heated just before usage, is made at site known as Isfahan and shipped to Natanz. Analysts say the silvery tank is similar to ones at the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan.

The tracks are used to transport large casks of uranium hexafluoride, the toxic gas fed into the centrifuges for enrichment.

A carbon rotor for a new generation of centrifuges known as the IR-2, for Iranian second generation. A hand in the foreground holds what appears to be a bellows. The specialized part is difficult to manufacture but can link rotors together to make a long centrifuge that more quickly enriches uranium. A bellows is not believed to be used in the IR-2 machines now under development but may be part of an experimental program.

empty stands for new centrifuges in the pilot plant. In the background, a cascade of IR-2 machines appears to be undergoing installation in an area that previously held P-1 centrifuges. Historically, the Iranians have used the pilot plant to test new centrifuge technology before its introduction into the buried halls, which are meant for mass production and industrial-scale enrichment.

Rows of advanced centrifuges, in the foreground, and older P-1s in the background. The three pipes at the center of each centrifuge head carry uranium in various stages of processing, while the fourth pipe pumps air and stray gases out of the centrifuge casing, letting the rotor spin with as little friction as possible.