The story behind the coffee mug

2026-02-06 - An inboard thermal shield panel is lifted for transfer to vacuum vessel sub-assembly tooling. "Inboard" means that this panel will mounted on the portion of the vacuum vessel sector that is closest to the middle of the tokamak pit.

2026-02-02 - Standing 4 metres tall, with an arm that extends up to 5 metres, Godzilla is a platform for the developing and testing the tools and technologies that will be used by robots installing components inside of the completed vacuum vessel.

2026-02-02 - In the basement of the Tokamak Assembly Preparation Building, operators are busy calibrating the Godzilla robot. Two partial "force and torque" prototypes on the tabletops in the foreground.

2026-02-02 - Beginning in March, Godzilla will test the tools under development on mockups and interfaces that are representative of the in-vessel environment.

2026-01-29 - Vacuum vessel sector #1 has been moved into the Assembly Hall to be upended and transferred to sub-assembly tooling. It will occupy the tool that was vacated two days ago by a sector module that was installed in the tokamak pit.

2026-01-29 - Four sector modules are side by side in the tokamak pit. The latest arrival, sector module #8 (still attached to rigging, left), has not quite settled on its supports.

2026-01-29 - Vacuum vessel sector module #8 is the fourth module to be installed in ITER's machine assembly pit. It joins #7, #6, and #5, which were installed in 2025.

2026-01-29 - Four sector modules are now in the ITER tokamak pit. Vacuum vessel sector module #8 (left, with rigging still attached) was installed in an overnight operation from 28 to 29 January 2026.

2026-01-28 - At 6:00 p.m. on 28 January, sector module #8 has already passed over the wall that separates the Assembly Hall from the tokamak pit. The night team, meeting now for a debrief session, will be responsible for lowering the component into the pit.

2026-01-28 - This night team is receiving a handover briefing from the day team. While they discuss the transfer underway of sector module #8, another module is taking shape in the background—#4, the next to be installed.

2026-01-28 - The fourth sector module of the ITER vacuum vessel, #8, will take its place next to sector modules #5, #6 and #7 in the pit. The next module to be inserted, however, will be placed across from these four.

2026-01-28 - One-ninth of the ITER vacuum vessel—sector module #8—looms over this technician as it crosses over the wall that divides the Assembly Hall from the tokamak pit. The load weighs 1,350 tonnes, as much as three fully loaded jetliners.

2026-01-28 - An average of 150 people are involved in a major ITER lift. This crew posing in front of the module before it descends into the pit is emblematic of the different teams that are essential to each operation's success—the riggers, the lifting crew and engineers from machine assembly contractor CNPE/Framatome, ITER supervisors and assembly experts; construction management-as-agent technicians and engineers; metrologists, and crane technical support.

2026-01-28 - At 9:00 p.m. on the night of the lift, Fabien Noel (Facility Management Officer) and Jens Reich (Machine Assembly Program Manager) are focused on the data coming in from the different teams. Will it be an "all-go"?