Iran's nuclear facilities have slipped into a dangerous monitoring blind spot. Commercial satellite companies have restricted imagery of the entire country, while the IAEA - the UN's nuclear watchdog - is no longer conducting in-person inspections at Iranian sites. The twin blackout has left the international community with almost no independent visibility into Tehran's nuclear program, "Hvylya" reports, citing The Economist.
Planet Labs, operator of the world's largest commercial imaging fleet, expanded its Middle East blackout to cover all of Iran - not just the Gulf combat zone. The company cited the need to limit the risk of imagery being used for targeting allied forces. But researchers say this explanation does not account for blocking images of Iran itself, far from the front lines.
One industry insider suggested the restriction was linked to talk of American ground operations inside Iran, including a potential raid to seize the country's stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Whatever the reason, the result is the same: facilities like the Bushehr reactor are now effectively unobservable from the outside.
There have been narrow exceptions. On March 11, Vantor - formerly Maxar - published an image of Iran's Taleghan-2 complex, a suspected nuclear facility that was bombed by America or Israel. But such releases remain sporadic. Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies pointed out that nobody had anticipated a protracted conflict where standard publication delays would prove insufficient for weeks or months of sustained operations.
The gap matters because commercial satellite imagery had become the primary independent tool for tracking activity at nuclear sites - from construction to vehicle movements to atmospheric emissions. With both that tool and IAEA access removed simultaneously, Iran's nuclear program has entered its least transparent period in years.
Also read: "This Is the Final Battle": Iran Expert Reveals Why Tehran Refuses to Capitulate.