First CODAC command issued

2024-12-19 - All smiles. In the main ITER control room, not yet fully equipped, a small ceremony takes place in December 2024 to mark the first time a CODAC command (for Control, Data Access and Communication) is sent to a plant system. In the future, some 80 operators, engineers and researchers will work from this space to monitor plasma, tokamak and plant system parameters in real-time.

2025-01-13 - With a fourth module now in place, the massive, tower-like superconducting magnet being assembled in the ITER Assembly Hall now reaches approximately two-thirds of its final height.

2025-01-09 - New piping is welded on a segment of support thermal shield panel at ITER. The panel will be lowered into the tokamak pit and installed as a thermal barrier between the toroidal field coil gravity supports and the vacuum vessel.

2024-12-27 - Personnel from the ITER Organization, ITER's Construction Management-as-Agent, and the CNPE assembly consortium stayed busy at the end of the year.

2024-12-27 - Scaffolding is installed above poloidal field coil #5 to protect it while assembly teams re-install support thermal shield panels.

2024-12-27 - Five of the nine required ITER vacuum vessel sectors are on site. Two are in tooling in the Assembly Hall; three others are being held in the former Cryostat Workshop (including the two pictured).

2024-12-27 - Offices may have been closed at ITER for the end-of-year holidays, but on the worksite the teams remained active. In the Assembly Hall, where tokamak components are prepared for installation, every day began with a coordination meeting.

2024-12-26 - Support thermal shield panel #17 is surveyed by a metrologist after repair and before installation in the tokamak pit.

2024-12-26 - A support thermal shield panel is installed and aligned in the pit. When corrosion cracking was discovered in some vacuum vessel thermal shield panels, the decision was made to replace all thermal shield cooling pipes. Support thermal shield panels, which weigh approximately 700 kg each, were easy to remove from the pit and repair. Now, after the removal of old pipes, machining, the welding of new pipes, and metrology, the panels are being reinstalled.

2024-12-19 - On Thursday 19 December, the ITER main control room issues its first CODAC command to a plant system, a decisive milestone towards tokamak operation. A powerful pump is activated, and water starts rushing into one of the cooling loops of the reactive power compensation installation.

2024-12-17 - China, responsible for the procurement of 220 blanket shield blocks for the ITER machine, oversees the shipment of a first batch of 48 in December. The truck is seen here leaving Donfang Electric Heavy Machinery Co., Ltd. in Guanzhou.

2024-12-16 - For some backfilling operations, no truck, pump or piping can easily access the zone. In these cases, solutions have been devised to bring the required concrete to where it is needed through a carefully orchestrated series of transfers of concrete to skips. In this image, one of the small skips delivered by cargo lift is emptied into a larger one that will be lifted and positioned above the opening to be filled.

2024-12-16 - The opening is now filled and the high-density concrete is being vibrated so that it settles in a homogeneous manner through the rebar. "Curing” will take one week; full compressive strength will be obtained in 28 days.

2024-12-13 - In December, the Director-General of ITER visits the EIPACA International School of Manosque, which provides K-12 bilingual education (French plus one of the following languages: English, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, or Japanese) and is attended by many children of ITER staff members. Pietro Barabaschi (second from left) meets with Nicolas Debenne (Director), Mickaël Cabbeke (Academic Director), and Annabelle Rinaudo (Deputy Head).