Subscribe options

Select your newsletters:

Please enter your email address:

@

Your email address will only be used for the purpose of sending you the ITER Organization publication(s) that you have requested. ITER Organization will not transfer your email address or other personal data to any other party or use it for commercial purposes.

If you change your mind, you can easily unsubscribe by clicking the unsubscribe option at the bottom of an email you've received from ITER Organization.

For more information, see our Privacy policy.

News & Media

Latest ITER Newsline

  • Fusion world | Japan and Europe inaugurate largest tokamak in the world

    It was 6:00 a.m. in La Bergerie, a former sheep barn located a few kilometres from ITER in the vast Château de Cadarache domain, and that had been converted [...]

    Read more

  • Stakeholders | ITER Director-General meets Prime Minister Kishida

    In Japan, the prime minister lives and works at the Prime Minister's Official Residence in central Tokyo, just a few blocks from the National Diet Building and [...]

    Read more

  • Image of the week | Season wrapping

    Although the travel distance is short, barely exceeding one hundred metres, the transfer of vacuum vessel sector #8 from the Assembly Hall, where it is presentl [...]

    Read more

  • In memoriam | Bernard Pégourié, physicist and mountaineer

    The worldwide fusion community mourns Bernard Pégourié, of France's Institute for Magnetic Fusion Research (CEA-IRFM), who passed away on 25 November following [...]

    Read more

  • COP28 | Fusion is making a splash

    The 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP28, opened on 30 November in Dubai's Expo City—a sprawling conference centre built two years ago for the W [...]

    Read more

Of Interest

See archived entries

From an ultralight's perspective

Lost in the wild: the 42-hectare ITER platform from an altitude of 500 metres. To the right: CEA-Cadarache; to the left, Mount Petit and Mount Gros Bessillon (~ alt. 800 m). © MatthieuCOLIN.com / ITER Organization (Click to view larger version...)
Lost in the wild: the 42-hectare ITER platform from an altitude of 500 metres. To the right: CEA-Cadarache; to the left, Mount Petit and Mount Gros Bessillon (~ alt. 800 m). © MatthieuCOLIN.com / ITER Organization
The last time an aerial photo survey was conducted of the ITER site, in September 2011*, the lower basemat had yet to be poured in the Tokamak Seismic Pit; cladding and roofing operations were underway on the Poloidal Field Coils Winding Facility; and windows were being installed at ITER Headquarters.

A year and a half later, a four-hectare electrical switchyard is in place and 500 people work from the completed Headquarters building. Preparatory works have just begun for the Tokamak Complex basemat (the B2 slab) that will rest atop the Seismic Pit's 493 concrete columns (plinths) and pads.

Whereas in 2011, vast expanses of barren land still existed between the different work areas on the platform, this new series of photographs, taken two weeks ago, shows a much different landscape: mounds of earth, trenches, and material and vehicle storage areas now occupy most of the available space between the buildings.

In the Seismic Pit, the radial pattern of the plinths is clearly visible from the air. At a short distance from the platform, surrounded by trees, the rubble storage area. © MatthieuCOLIN.com / ITER Organization (Click to view larger version...)
In the Seismic Pit, the radial pattern of the plinths is clearly visible from the air. At a short distance from the platform, surrounded by trees, the rubble storage area. © MatthieuCOLIN.com / ITER Organization
In the Seismic Pit, the radial pattern of the plinths is clearly visible from the air. Nearby, the completed sections of the Assembly Building foundation slab reflect the mid-afternoon winter sun. From the Headquarters building, long shadows extend almost all the way to the deserted parking lot (the photograph was taken on a Saturday). On the "green" rooftops of the Access Control Building, the Amphitheatre and the Medical Building, the sedum plants wear their winter colour—they will turn from red to green in the summer and from green to yellow in the fall.

Photographer Matthieu Colin carried out the latest ITER aerial campaign from an ultralight aircraft flying at an altitude of 500-900 metres. (The September 2011 photographs had been taken from a helium-filled balloon hovering at 70-100 metres above ground.)

* The December 2012 pictures that appear in our web site's photo Gallery were taken from a cellular radio tower 40-metre high.
 
Click here to view more aerial photographs of the ITER site.


return to the latest published articles