Saudi Arabia appears to be expanding its ballistic missile factory to build larger solid-fuel missiles that could fly farther or carry heavier payloads, according to two US researchers who analyzed more than a year of commercial satellite images.
More capable missiles could help Saudi Arabia to deter attacks by Iran and make its military more self-reliant, while possibly strengthening its position in a deadly conflict with Yemen’s Tehran-backed Houthi fighters.
But they risk fueling a regional missile race and could deepen opposition in the US Congress to a US-Saudi civilian nuclear agreement that has already raised concerns about proliferation.
Satellite company Planet Labs, based in the US, took images of the al-Duwadimi complex about 125 miles (200 km) west of Riyadh between April 2025 and September 2026.
The two researchers, Sam Lair and Michael Duitsman of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, assessed that those images show a new building that houses casting pits wells in which a mixture of fuel ingredients is poured into missile motor casings and allowed to harden.