Fasa
Rudan Nuclear Research Center
Prior to enrichment, uranium yellowcake must be transformed into uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6), which is the feedstock for the centrifuge enrichment process. Reportedly the Iranian "hex" plant is known as the Rudan Nuclear Research Center, located near the town of Fasa near Shiraz in Fars Province. China may have built this plant as part of a secret nuclear cooperation agreement signed in 1991. Other reports suggest that this facility may be located at the Nuclear Technology Center in Esfahan. Indications of the existence of this facility [wherever it may be located] include Russian press reports of a shipment of uranium hexafluoride gas from China to Iran in late 1994, as well as purchases of hydrogen fluoride from Germany and attempts to buy fluorification equipment from Britain.
As of 11 April 2000, Russian 2-meter resolution KVR-1000 imagery coverage was not available via the SPIN-2 service on TerraServer, nor was archived Space Imaging IKONOS 1-meter imagery of this facility available on the CARTERRA™ Archive.
In mid-2001 Israel's Eros A1 imaging spacecraft photographed what its operators believed to be the construction site for a facility which could be used to store large missiles. Fasa had not previously been associated with missile-related activities. The image taken by the spacecraft showed excavation works for large underground bunkers. The roads on the site form two hexagons and below these the start of what may have been intended as an octagon. Between the hexagons and the main road are around 20 buildings, some of which are contained in a small pentagonal-shaped area.
