August 2011 turned out to be a hot time for Russian cable manufacturers who were able to honour an important milestone in the production of toroidal field conductors for ITER: the Russian Scientific Research and Development Cable Institute JSC VNIIKP completed the manufacture of 760 metres of toroidal field copper dummy conductor.

The conductors for ITER's magnet system are at the "heart" of one of the key elements of the future Tokamak and, as such, are receiving much attention from the Russian and ITER Organization experts who regularly inspect the conductor manufacturing processes in Moscow, Glazov and Podolsk.

To pass this critical milestone, the Russian Domestic Agency (RF-DA) team had to come a long way. To prepare for the manufacture of superconducting cables for ITER, the RF-DA reconfigured Russia's industrial infrastructure under the guidance of the Bochvar Institute (Moscow) and JSC VNIIKP. The development of the JSC ChMZ production facility in Glazov, beginning in 2004, required the purchase and installation of the equipment and technology necessary to fulfill extraordinary complicated, filigree work operations.

The manufacture of 760 metres of toroidal field copper dummy conductor is definitely a significant step forward, showing that with time and effort ... fine results can be achieved! This first copper dummy unit length will be used to qualify the conductors' manufacturing processes, including qualification of cabling, jacket welding, cable pull-through for an assembled jacket length, compaction, and spooling of the conductor. The final steps of process—compaction and spooling into a 4-metre transport solenoid—were completed in August.

With acceptance of the copper dummy conductor comes the finalization of jacketing line commissioning and the beginning of mass production. The dummy will be transported to Italy where it will be tested and qualified, after which we will be able to state that Russia is completely ready for producing toroidal field conductors for ITER ... which sounds really good!