As dusk settles on the ITER worksite, the second shift is only half way through its workday. Lights turn on, illuminating a spectacular scene teeming with activity. To the right of the image, the view takes in the red-trimmed Poloidal Field Coils Winding Facility where fabrication is ongoing for the mockup of poloidal field coil #5. Standing parallel to this large industrial facility, the cryoplant's foundation and supporting columns are now finalized and the first elements of its steel structure are in place.   To the center left, the Assembly Hall has acquired a towering presence—something akin to the Kaaba in Mecca. In the harsh worksite lights, every detail of the ongoing works in the Tokamak Complex stands out: the almost completed L1 level of the Diagnostics Building to the right; the blue tarp covering the most recent concrete pours in the Tokamak Building at the centre and the thousands of embedded plates, formwork structures and penetrations in the Tritium Building to the left.   Turning to the north now, and to the snow-capped mountains catching the last of the sun's rays ... Turning to the north now, and to the snow-capped mountains catching the last of the sun's rays—a different, unusual vision of the ITER site: to the left, lights are on in the offices of ITER Organization Headquarters as they are now in the villages in the distance.   And here is the Holy of Holies ... And here is the Holy of Holies—the circular fortress that will enclose the ITER Tokamak and its 3.2-metre-thick rampart, the bioshield. The structure, made of super-heavy concrete, is designed to protect both men and the environment from the radiation stemming from the fusion reactions inside the machine.In some areas of the L1 level, concrete is already settling and drying; in others, formwork and reinforcement is in place for the upcoming pours.There's a striking beauty in the ITER site at night—something that fills with awe and anticipation.

A streak of light in the winter sky—not a shooting star, not a jetliner condensation trail glowing in the dark but ... the International Space Station (ISS) flying high over the ITER worksite. In one single image, the two largest international scientific collaborations ever established are captured: on the ground, the seven-Member, 35-nation ITER collaboration; and 400 kilometres overhead a project bringing together the American, Russian, Japanese, European and Canadian space agencies.The best time to sight the bright, slow-moving dot that is the ISS is in the hours after sunset and before sunrise—when the station remains sunlit, but the ground and sky are dark. This long-exposure photograph was taken at 6:07 p.m. on Thursday 8 December. Click here to view the animation.    

Seventy tonnes of equipment has been shipped from Russia for ITER's switching network and fast discharge units. The shipment, which left Saint Petersburg on 5 December for a first stop in Kiel, Germany, includes direct current aluminium busbars for the poloidal field coils, correction coils and central solenoid; busbar thermal expansion absorbers; and other DC busbar components. Busbars—the components that connect the superconducting magnets with their power supply—are capable of carrying 70kA of current. The switching networks for ITER's coil power supplies will trigger the pulses in the circuits of the central solenoid and poloidal field coil numbers 1 and 6 for the initiation of the plasma. The fast discharge units are used to protect the superconducting coils in case of a quench (a sudden loss of superconductivity). All components for these systems are under development at the Efremov Institute (NIIEFA) in St. Petersburg, which has world-recognized expertise in this area. The fabrication and supply of switching equipment, busbars and energy absorbing resistors for power supply and protection of the superconducting magnetic system is the most expensive—and one of the most complicated—of the 25 systems falling within the scope of Russia's procurement responsibility. According to the terms of the Procurement Arrangement signed in 2011, the Efremov Institute will manufacture and deliver approximately 5.4 km of busbars with a total weight exceeding 500 tonnes. The shipment that is on the way will be the second delivery of switching network equipment to ITER from Russia.

The massive 1,500-ton double overhead bridge crane that was installed in the Assembly Hall in June now has a sibling. Just as long and as impressive, albeit much lighter, the girders for the 50-tonne auxiliary crane were lifted last week onto their rails at a height of 39 metres. The operation last June had required the use of one of the tallest and most powerful crawler cranes available. Operating from outside the building, it lifted the girders through an opening in the building's roof.   This time, the weight of the auxiliary crane girders (42 tonnes as compared to 186) and the installation height (39 metres as compared to 42) made it possible to use a telescopic crane that operated from inside the Assembly Hall.   The full lifting system for the pre-assembly of Tokamak components is now in place. When the Tokamak Building is complete, the rails for both the principal and auxiliary cranes will be extended 80 metres to allow for the transport of components between the Assembly Hall and the Tokamak assembly area.

Module fabrication for the "heartbeat of ITER"—the 1,000-tonne central solenoid at the centre of the ITER magnet system—is underway at the General Atomics Magnet Development Facility in Poway, California. General Atomics finished the insulation process earlier this month for the qualification coil. This coil serves to validate final manufacturing processes prior to their application during the production of the six coil modules that make up the stacked central magnet. Because ITER's central solenoid is subject to fault voltages up to 14,000 volts and must be tested at 30,000 volts, the successful ground insulation of the coils is a vital step in the fabrication process of the modules. The ground insulation system, consisting of 12 layers of glass and Kapton sheets, provides protection for up to 30,000 volts from other systems and components located in the ITER cryostat.  The completely insulated qualification coil, with helium inlet pipes attached on its inner surface. The qualification coil serves to validate each step in the manufacturing process. Approximately 116 km of Kapton and fiberglass tape were used to wrap the 224 coil turns at the perimeter of the qualification coil with six successive layers. For a true production module, which is made up of 560 turns, more than double that amount—or 300 km—will be needed.  "From here, the qualification coil will be vacuum-pressure impregnated with 2,000 litres of resin, permeating the glass cloth and further insulating the coil," said John Smith, ITER program manager for General Atomics. The epoxy resin impregnation is scheduled to be completed by late December 2016. At that stage, the demonstration coil will be nearly 80 percent through its two-year fabrication process. "The scale of this central solenoid project is remarkable, as is the amount of engineering and fabrication work that brought us to this milestone. Watching this project continue to progress has been immensely gratifying," added Smith.

Even the greatest performers need rehearsals ... and JET is no exception. Scientists and engineers at the world's largest operating tokamak have been preparing for JET's next starring role — a run of tests using the high-power fuel mixture of deuterium and tritium (D-T). The deuterium-tritium combination is the one that will be used to gain maximum fusion output in ITER and in the first fusion power stations that will follow it. JET is the only present-day fusion machine that can use tritium and therefore has a vital role in preparing for ITER operations. As a radioactive substance, and one that is in short supply, tritium is not used very often at JET. Most research is carried out with deuterium only (the last operations with tritium were in 2003). However new campaigns of both T-T and D-T experiments are planned in 2018 and 2019 to give the best simulation yet of how fusion plasmas will perform in ITER. The D-T rehearsal at JET during this summer and autumn aimed to simulate the operating environment for the tritium campaigns. With 13 years since the last tritium experiments, many of the systems and the people working on them have changed. The rehearsal was an ideal opportunity to test procedures for using tritium, train staff and iron out any flaws ahead of the real thing. See video interviews on the rehearsal experience at CCFE (Culham Centre for Fusion Energy).

The FOM Institute DIFFER, in the Netherlands, is starting a large research program to investigate one of the most fundamental difficulties in designing the fusion reactors of the future—how to protect the solid vessel from the intense heat and neutron bombardment of the reaction, especially in the divertor region which "exhausts" the plasma. The research program "Taming the Flame" is supported by strategic funding from Foundation FOM (Fundamental research On Matter). Nine new researchers (seven PhD positions and two postdoc positions) will be recruited to work in an integrated approach together with DIFFER's existing scientific staff.  "In a fusion power plant, even a sturdy metal wall with a high melting point will not be able to resist the plasma," says DIFFER's head of fusion research Marco de Baar. "In our research program, we want to already start managing the heat load inside the plasma, and bring the energy to the wall in a controlled way." The research will focus on controlling and diluting the plasma before it reaches the wall, and on the novel concept of a self-repairing exhaust wall, with a liquid metal layer flowing over and protecting the solid reactor wall. A key experiment in the program is DIFFER's linear plasma generator Magnum-PSI, the only laboratory facility in the world capable of examining materials exposed to the intense plasma conditions at the walls of future fusion reactors. In addition, the team will test their research at existing fusion experiments in Germany, Switzerland and the UK. Read the full press release on the DIFFER website.