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

  • Test facility | How do electronics react to magnetic fields?

    A tokamak is basically a magnetic cage designed to confine, shape and control the super-hot plasmas that make fusion reactions possible. Inside the ITER Tokamak [...]

    Read more

  • ITER Robots | No two alike

    More than 500 students took part in the latest ITER Robots challenge. Working from the same instructions and technical specifications, they had worked in teams [...]

    Read more

  • Data archiving | Operating in quasi real time

    To accommodate the first real-time system integrated with the ITER control system, new components of the data archiving system have been deployed. Data archivi [...]

    Read more

  • Repairs | Setting the stage for a critical task

    Like in a game of musical chairs—albeit in slow motion and at a massive scale—components in the Assembly Hall are being transferred from one location to another [...]

    Read more

  • Image of the week | There is life on Planet ITER

    Dated April 2023, this new image of the ITER "planet" places the construction site squarely in the middle. One kilometre long, 400 metres wide, the IT [...]

    Read more

Of Interest

See archived entries

ITER NEWSLINE -

On site

A quick visit to the Control Building

Work is progressing on the ITER Control Building, ergonomically designed for the 60 to 80 operators, engineers and researchers who will call it home. Newsline paid a quick visit to the construction site last week.

Work is progressing on the 3,500-square metre, three-storey ITER Control Building. Scientists, engineers and operators will work from here to monitor machine operation and analyze the data they receive from each pulse. (Click to view larger version...)
Work is progressing on the 3,500-square metre, three-storey ITER Control Building. Scientists, engineers and operators will work from here to monitor machine operation and analyze the data they receive from each pulse.
As the heart and vital organs of ITER will beat and pulse in the Tokamak Complex and in the various facilities spread over the installation's platform, the brain that commands them will occupy a 3,500-square-metre, three-storey structure providing space for the control and server rooms, offices, meeting rooms and support facilities.

The ITER Control Building will be the daily work environment for the operators, researchers, and engineers running ITER physics experiments or the routine 24-hour operation and control functions of the machine and plant. A good deal of planning has gone into the design of the different spaces to create a "liveable" environment—one that is conducive to focus and concentration, yet that also encourages interaction and communication between the teams. Lighting, materials, acoustics, temperature, airflow, noise levels, the colour and arrangement of displays, seating and furniture, rest areas ... all of these elements have been carefully studied and organized.

The main control room will be staffed on a 24-hour-per-day, continuous basis for the operational life of the ITER facility. It will be a large chamber with an open floor plan, seven-metre ceilings, natural light, large-screen displays, desks grouped by task or unit, and a glass-walled visitor gallery.

A second, backup control room will be housed in a seismically protected nuclear building to ensure plant functionality in all circumstances.

See the gallery below for the most recent photos of construction.

return to the latest published articles