On 24 October 2007, the ITER Organization was officially established following the ratification by the seven ITER Members of the project's constitutive document, the ITER Agreement. Now, nearly ten years on, a unique community has taken root in southern France, among the hills of Haute Provence. Hundreds of scientists, engineers, technicians, project members and administrators from 35 countries that are working toward the same goal: building the first machine that will be capable of demonstrating a burning plasma, a self-sustaining environment that holds the key to the development of a new, safe, environmentally responsible and virtually inexhaustible energy source. Yet those on the front lines at the ITER site are only the visible part of the iceberg, as the project could not be realized without the support of home governments, Domestic Agencies, universities, labs and of course industry, where ITER components and systems are in production. Meetings of the ITER Council, held at least twice a year, are the occasion to measure this broad base of support, as representatives and experts from every Member convene to review project progress, project management, and the status of construction and manufacturing.The Twentieth Meeting of the ITER Council on 21 and 22 June was no different. The Council reviewed a detailed set of reports and indicators demonstrating that—while working to an extremely demanding schedule and challenging technical requirements—the ITER Project continues its strong performance and remains on schedule for First Plasma 2025. Without minimizing the challenges that remain before the completion of construction, the members of the ITER Council reaffirmed their joint commitment to the mission and the vision of the project. Read the full press release in English or French.View the photo gallery from the Twentieth ITER Council (IC-20) below.

Three cryogenic plant cold boxes were moved last week from temporary storage to their final destination on the ITER site. It was the occasion to remember a piece of ITER history—that the former French President François Hollande had inscribed his signature on one of the cold boxes during an official visit in 2015 to an Air Liquide factory near Grenoble, France. Before transport to ITER, the plaque bearing the presidential signature was removed and placed in the company's museum. One does not take chances with non-standard elements in a component as complex as these huge refrigerators, designed to cool gaseous helium to the ultra-low temperature of 4.5 K (minus 269° C).From the 8,000 square-metre cryoplant located at ITER (covered buildings plus exterior storage areas) helium and nitrogen will be produced at various temperatures and distributed to the "cold" clients of the machine; that is, the superconducting magnets, cryopumps and thermal shield that function at cryogenic temperatures. The 21-metre cold boxes—each weighing about 137 tonnes with internal components—provide an insulated environment for components such as heat exchangers, cryogenic adsorbers, liquid helium and liquid nitrogen phase separators. Under contract with the ITER Organization, Air Liquide is responsible for the design, manufacturing, installation and commissioning of the liquid helium plants. The vessels were manufactured by SIMIC (Italy) and transported to the Air Liquide factory in Sassenage, near Grenoble, France, where all internal components were integrated. The installation of the first components in the ITER cryoplant represents the on-time achievement of an ITER Council milestone for project construction. With over 4,500 components in all, however, cryoplant installation work is far from complete. Upcoming milestones include the installation in the Compressor Building in of 18 motor-compressor skids, each weighing approximately 20 tonnes, which compress gaseous helium before it is cooled in the cold boxes through the expansion process. (Gases heat up when compressed and cool down when they expand.) The ITER Cryogenic System Section is also expecting the delivery of a "test cryostat" from Air Liquide this week that will be used to verify the performance of the three cold boxes as part of site acceptance procedures that are stipulated in the procurement documents. With the capacity to simulate the "heat load" of the systems that the cryoplant will be called on to cool down, the test cryostat will be used to test each cold box separately, over a period of 18 months, before the three are tested together in final site acceptance tests. See the gallery below for photos of cold box transport and installation. The European Domestic Agency has also published a report on the many tanks that are ready for installation in the exterior storage area of the cryoplant.

The fusion world directed its applause to the east earlier this month as the Kazakh tokamak KTM started operations with a first plasma discharge. "We are happy to report that the main objectives of the start-up have been achieved," reported lead scientist Irina Tazhibayeva at the World Scientific and Engineering Congress held this week in the Kazakh capital of Astana.   A photo of the KTM plasma discharge, which lasted approximately 20 ms (captured from a video). The first stage of physical start-up has now been achieved. With a major plasma-radius of 0.9 m the spherical KTM device is much smaller than ITER (6.2 m). But the Kazakh machine is designed to operate with heat loads of up to 20 megawatts per square metre, which is in the same range as the ITER device. This characteristic makes the machine a very attractive test bed for investigating the materials that are best suited to the demands of electricity producing fusion reactors.   The choice of material for the plasma-facing components of future fusion reactors is an important one. Some component surfaces will have to withstand temperatures of more than 1,000 degrees for sustained periods over many years as well as face enormous neutron fluxes.   The KTM tokamak offers a unique feature among materials testing facilities: that is, a movable divertor and transport-sluice device allowing for the prompt replacement of the materials samples under investigation without the loss of vacuum in the vacuum chamber. A mobile receiving device inside the vacuum chamber is designed to manoeuvre all of the replacements through a gateway and to position the divertor plates through vertical and angle positioning.   In this way, 24 elements of the divertor (located at the bottom of the machine) can be replaced by remote control.   Last week it was finally time to count down to the start of machine operation. During the start-up, a plasma discharge pulse of 10 kA was achieved. The plasma discharge pulse time was 20 ms and a toroidal field of Bt ~ 0.35 T could be confirmed. Hydrogen, helium, and argon were used as working gases.   Dancers from the Carros De foc perform in a mockup of the KTM tokamak that figures prominently in the Kazakh pavilion at the Astana World's Fair. www.carrosfoc.com - "A Brighter Future" The aim of the first stage of physical start-up was to carry out debugging and functional tests on KTM's standard systems before further integrated tests are carried out in October. Present at the 9 June event were personnel who took part in the work from Kazakhstan's National Nuclear Center (host to the machine), the Thermonuclear Research Unit of the national Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, and the Troitsk Institute of Innovative and Thermonuclear Research (Russia).   Once commissioned, the goals of the KTM research program include the testing of first wall and divertor materials such as beryllium, copper-chrome-zirkon-alloy, stainless steel, tungsten-copper-bi-metallic plates, tungsten, tungsten-rhenium alloy, tungsten and yttrium-oxide-alloy, and high density graphite; and studies of different types of particle/heat removal mechanisms under heat fluxes of 0.1-20 MW/m².   In May, six CIS countries (for Commonwealth of Independent States) signed an intergovernmental agreement on the joint use of the KTM tokamak—Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. A little over two weeks later, on 11 June 2017, the ITER Organization signed a Cooperation Agreement with the National Nuclear Center of the Republic of Kazakhstan that includes access to the KTM tokamak for materials testing.

At ITER, two massive sector sub-assembly tools will suspend and equip the vacuum vessel sectors in the Assembly Hall before they are transported by overhead crane to the Tokamak Pit for installation. Following fabrication, assembly and testing in Korea, the first of the giant tools (22 m tall, 800 tonnes) is on its way to ITER in batches. The first crates reached the site on 22 June. A dedicated storage area has been prepared in the antechamber to the Assembly Hall, the Cleaning Facility, for the successive batches of components. The first installation activities will begin in September, with the installation of the first rail components on the concrete basemat. The structure of the tool will require approximately three months to build. The weight of the suspended vacuum vessel sectors is anchored by three massive columns, while lateral "wings" will slowly rotate the other components of the sector sub-assembly (two toroidal field coils and thermal shielding) in for alignment and installation. As part of site acceptance tests, the tool will be tested with a 310-tonne load—the weight of one of the two toroidal field coils that will be rotated and attached as each vacuum vessel sector is suspended vertically.The on-time arrival of the first tool components validates one of ITER Project's 2017 milestones.Read more about the tool here.