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Images of the week

A giant, slow-motion game of musical chairs

15 Dec 2025

One component leaves sector sub-assembly tooling, another arrives ... the intricately coordinated transfers of large components in the ITER Assembly Hall resemble a slow-moving game of musical chairs.

Vacuum vessel sector #4 is transported from the upending tool on one side of the Assembly Hall to a sector sub-assembly tool on the other. The component looks small as it travels through the vast hall, but it is approximately 11 metres tall.

Just a few weeks after one of the vacuum vessel sector sub-assembly tools was liberated, a "bare" vacuum vessel sector has arrived to claim the space. From now until mid-2027 when all nine sectors of the ITER vacuum vessel have been positioned in the tokamak pit, the twin assembly tools will be in continuous use.

The giant tools have been conceived for one purpose: to associate a vacuum vessel sector with its thermal shield plus two D-shaped toroidal field coils, creating a sector module that can be installed in the tokamak pit. 

The tools stand six storeys high, with lateral wings spreading 20 metres. They weigh 800 tonnes and support the weight of the finalized sector module (approximately 1,100 tonnes). 

A "bare" sector arrives. A "sector module" departs.

On Wednesday 10 December, it was the turn of sector module #4 to be transported across the Assembly Hall by the overhead bridge cranes and inserted into SSAT 1 (sector sub-assembly tool #1). In approximately six months, for this tool, it will be time for musical chairs again.

The "bare" sector is seen here suspended inside of an assembly tool. When it is extracted from the tool, some six months down the road, it will be a completed "sector module," after the addition of its thermal shield and two D-shaped magnet coils.
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