http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/rsa/pelindaba.htmThey do scientific research there still today.
Building 1200 - Medical unit, converted to the Wildlife Breeding Research Centre (WBRC) headquarters and laboratory in March 1996.
The SAFARI-1 reactor is supported by a comprehensive infrastructure, including -
* a large inventory of highly enriched uranium
* an MTR fuel manufacturing plant
* extensive hot cell facilities
* an Isotope Centre
* a pipe storage facility for interim storage of spent fuel
* two disposal sites for low and medium-level radioactive waste
* theoretical reactor physics support
* radiochemistry, including radiopharmaceutical research
* radioanalysis
The two most important commercial products produced by SAFARI-1 are fission Mo-99 and the transmutation doping of silicon. The former application is rapidly growing and will contribute significantly to covering the running costs of SAFARI-1 in the future. In the mid-1990s the Atomic Energy Corporation of South Africa expanded its Mo-99 production capacity at its Safari-1 research reactor to 1000 curies per week. Other commercial applications relate to isotope production, materials modification, neutron activation analysis and the provision of general irradiation services.
In the late 1990s. to carry out its regulatory control function on safeguards of nuclear materials more cost-effectively, the AEC's vault of highly enriched uranium for the SAFARI-1 reactor, together with a number of other locations elsewhere in the world, were fitted with Remote Monitoring Systems by the IAEA. These systems allow the IAEA to carry out direct surveillance of any nuclear material store through encrypted direct signals to Vienna.
In 1998 the AEC commissioned its interim retrievable dry store at Pelindaba for spent fuel from SAFARI-1 after receiving the necessary safety and safeguards approvals from the Council for Nuclear Safety and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, respectively. As a result, 120 spent fuel elements were transported from the spent fuel racks in the pool of SAFARI-1 research reactor to the retrievable dry store on Thabana.