ITER’s fifth annual Safety Day was the occasion to promote a global safety philosophy and introduce a revised system of day-to-day safety rules for the worksite. “We cannot discuss the safety of nuclear fusion without being recognized as a world-class safety project,” emphasized Gilles Perrier, ITER’s Head of Safety and Quality, as he welcomed ITER staff and contractors to the Safety Day event on 18 September. “How can we say we are building a virtuous machine if we aren’t virtuous when respecting safety rules and regulations?”In this spirit, Safety Day was used to publicize the new ITER 9 Life-Saving Rules program for on-site safety and security. Previously, ITER had 12 Golden Rules for Safety Enforcement, but Perrier and his team began revising this program last year to hone it down to 9 rules that are easier to understand and can be more efficiently enforced. (See sidebar.) The new rules were introduced this summer and went into the compliance phase this month.“These rules are not simply advice, they need to be followed,” insisted ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi during his opening remarks. “It’s very important that we maintain our good safety record and, if anything, that we improve it because our number one priority is simply to return home to our families and friends safely. So, let’s look at this new safety booklet and let’s read it every day.” Shino Ramachandran, who works as part of the Plant Systems Installation Program, attempts to identify fire hazards in a virtual reality simulation designed by Bureau Veritas as part of training for Rule #2—identifying and isolating sources of electricity in the workplace. Safety Day has been organized since 2021 as part of an effort to promote a culture of safety, raise awareness about best practices, and reinforce the message that safety is a core value and not just a compliance requirement. ITER’s current safety records show a Lost Time Injury or LTI rate of 4.5—which corresponds to an annual average of 7.4 workers suffering an injury with lost time, per 1,000 employees. This rate is good for the construction sector but there is still room for improvement as compared to other best-in-class industries.So far in 2025, there have been 20 lost-time incidents at the ITER site. That is slightly higher than the 18 incidents recorded at this same time in 2024, but lower than previous years. Jeremy Guigon-Boyd, the responsible officer for Safety Culture Improvement and Human & Organizational Factors at ITER and the organizer of the Safety Day event, says that although results are improving, it is important to show caution: “Despite the year-on-year decreasing trend, and even if we are doing well compared to the standards of other industries, there is room for improvement. These statistics are more than numbers—they represent people, and we don’t want anybody to suffer an injury.” ITER's 9 Life-Saving Rules The new ITER 9 Life-Saving Rules program was introduced in the summer of 2025 and ITER management, with the support of the safety and security team, is now enforcing compliance. The program includes a “three strike” system where a person caught violating a rule three times, such as driving without a seatbelt, working at height unprotected, or working without a required permit, will risk being excluded from working on site. (Download the poster below.)Rule #1 - Work Authorization: Be sure to have the proper work permit when it is requiredRule #2 - Energy Isolation: Identify and isolate all electricity or other energy sources when workingRule #3 - Safety Controls: Get authorization before overriding safety controls to complete a taskRule #4 - Work at Height: Protect yourself and others from falling when working at heightRule #5 - Lifting: All lifting operations must be well-prepared, communicated, and controlledRule #6 - Confined Space: Get the required authorization before entering or working in a confined spaceRule #7 - Fire Prevention: Ignition sources and flammables must be identified and controlledRule #8 - Driving: Comply with safe driving regulations by wearing seatbelts, respecting speed limits, etcRule #9 - Line of Fire: Always be sure to be out of the way of moving machinery, lifting operations, energy release paths, etc While 2025 has seen no serious injury at ITER, there have been what are described as “high-potential near misses.” For example, in May 2025, a collision between a 750-tonne crane and a maintenance crane resulted in a piece of equipment falling more than 40 metres to the floor, which could have had severe consequences for team members present in the vicinity of the accident.Safety Day continues to grow as part of ITER’s holistic vision of safety. In 2024, 30 subcontractors and ITER departments had information booths and 1,700 people attended the event. This year, there were 37 information booths and—despite a strike in France that reduced the number of personnel on site—the attendance was the same. Participants were encouraged to follow a safety trail that put the 9 Life-Saving Rules in the spotlight with activities and demonstrations on working at height, safe lifting practices, and driving responsibly among others. You can download a poster of ITER's Life-Saving Rules here.

Cryopumps are highly sophisticated devices whose performance depends on the quality of a simple, natural product—coconut charcoal.  In ITER, cryopumps are responsible for creating the very high level of vacuum required inside the plasma chamber and surrounding cryostat. They work by condensing gas molecules on very cold surfaces.Decades ago, when the cryopumps were under development, researchers determined that the material with the greatest capacity to capture gas molecules when cooled to cryogenic temperature—a process called “adsorption”— was finely ground charcoal from coconut husks.The unique quality of coconut charcoal lies in the exceptionally large internal surface developed by the walls of its pores (no less than 1,200 square metres per gram of charcoal!) that allows for the efficient capture of helium ash from the fusion reaction.Robert Pearce, who has been involved in cryopump design and manufacturing for more than three decades; Alessandra Iannetti, who manages the cryopump test facility, and Vacuum & Cryogenics Engineer Atlantis Cobalt are seen in the photo above holding a cryopump panel, coated on both sides with coconut charcoal.There are 28 such panels in each of the six torus cryopumps, which amounts to approximately 7 kg of ground charcoal per pump.

What better way to spend the last day of summer than at the ITER Games? The 13th edition on 20 September brought together more than 800 ITER staff members and their families in Vinon-sur-Verdon for a day of sport, music and socializing. This year’s trail run was a demanding 12-kilometre course with a lot of uphill stretches, while the technically challenging 25 km VTT (mountain bike) race blazed through the gorgeous countryside around the village. In Vinon’s freshly renovated square, teams faced off in a quintessential Provencal setting for “pétanque under the plane trees.” The teams gathered to “pointer” and “tirer,” with some of the more experienced players getting out their pocket tape measures to establish, without any room for argument, which boule was closest to the cochonnet (target). And the bouncy castle for children was never uninhabited!The ITER Games were first launched in 2010 by Bernard Blanc (Assystem), Mayor Claude Cheilan of Vinon-sur-Verdon, and Jérôme Pamela of Agence Iter France to strengthen links between ITER staff, their families, and the host community. Thirteen editions later, the Games continue to grow in popularity, thanks to the commitment of the many local volunteers. A warm thank you goes to Mayor Cheilan, who continues to support the ITER Games taking over the centre of the town every year. And to our sponsors—Daher, Assystem, Momentum, and Apave—for making the ITER Games a reality. 

The last of six central solenoid modules required to complete the central solenoid stack has reached ITER. The last magnet module of the central solenoid arrived at 1:02 a.m. on Friday 19 September. The convoy covered some 30 kilometres during its last night of travel, following a trajectory from Meyrargues to ITER that included navigating the streets of several small villages, crossing the A51 motorway to bypass a tunnel, and finally passing through the ITER gates and climbing the steep incline of the heavy-duty track that leads to the ITER construction platform. The ITER itinerary refers to the special 104-kilometre transport route prepared so that very large, very heavy ITER components could move from the Mediterranean harbour of Fos-sur-Mer to the ITER site in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance. Large-scale public works were carried out by France between 2008 and 2011 to widen roads, replace or reinforce bridges and modify intersections. Hundreds of components have travelled the route since the itinerary was declared open in 2013 (see this report from 2021).The 110-tonne central solenoid module that travelled this week made the trip in three nights, the most frequent scenario along the itinerary. Some ITER loads require an extra night or two, however—the giant cryostat manufactured for the ITER magnet cold test facility will take a full five days to reach ITER along the itinerary. We'll have a full report in the 6 October issue of the ITER Newsline.