CASE STUDY
data. The exponential increase in its availability in the recent past has made it a powerful tool for intelligence gathering. In September 2020, following a mysterious explosion at Iran’s Natanz nuclear complex, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, announced the construction of a new underground nuclear facility. The announcement triggered a race among GEOINT analysts to uncover the whereabouts of the new facility.
The challenge
According to experts, the global, daily visibility offered by satellite imagery is having an impact on the behavior of countries, especially with regard to high-interest activities, which could be viewed as security threats by other nations.
A PICTURE WORTH THOUSAND WORDS Planet data helped analysts uncover underground nuclear facilities in Iran.
W
ith a major shift in global geopolitics in the last few years, the significance of modern-day technology in gathering accurate and actionable intelligence has increased
significantly. An example of this is satellite imagery, which provides the power of visualization in real time. For years, satellite imagery has been used by the geo-intelligence (GEOINT) community to gather relevant
Geo-intelligence analysts routinely study and analyze numerous activities related to security risks. But how do they analyze activities that are performed covertly?
The requirement
Following the explosion at the Natanz nuclear complex, Dr. Jeffrey Lewis and his team from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS) were keen to learn more about the development of the new plant. MIIS specializes in analyzing pressing geopolitical issues, such as the development of nuclear capabilities in regions of high interest. In addition to March-April 2021 | www.gwprime.geospatialworld.net | 39
