In accordance with the overall baseline approach established by the ITER Council, the Research Plan must be refined and checked for consistency with the foreseen configuration of the tokamak and its ancillary systems. A group of experts, nominated by the Members, met in February to define the details of the new blueprint for achieving ITER’s research goals. At its November 2024 meeting, the ITER Council endorsed the overall approach of the new baseline based on the Members’ analysis of the new baseline documentation submitted by the ITER Organization. This documentation included a high-level description of the ITER Research Plan, known as Level-1 in the ITER documentation system, which is approved by the ITER Director-General following endorsement by the ITER Council. Level-1 was developed under the coordination of the ITER Organization by a group of experts including ITER staff and experts from the Members.Following the outcome of the ITER Council meeting in November 2024, the group of experts was reconvened to further elaborate the details of the Research Plan down to Level-2 and Level-3 beginning with teleconference meetings in early December. Level-2 describes the Research Plan and medium-level configuration details of the tokamak and its ancillary systems that are under configuration control, meaning that any modification to these details may require a project change request, and impact on hardware must be evaluated by the ITER Organization in coordination with the Domestic Agencies. Level-3 of the Research Plan addresses details concerning the use of the tokamak and ancillary systems with no impact on configuration control. To finalize the detailing of the ITER Research Plan down to Levels 2 and 3, an in-person meeting of the expert group was held at the ITER headquarters from 25-27 February 2025. During this meeting, the experts from the Members were updated on the design refinements of key systems for the Research Plan, including diagnostics, heating and current drive, first wall, fuel cycle, and others.  Detailed discussions were conducted to finalize the Research Plan’s objectives and experimental strategies for each experimental campaign defining the experimental blocks, duration and temporal execution. ITER Organization staff and experts from the Members discussing the details of the new baseline ITER Research Plan in February 2025. Extensive discussions ensured consistency across all research campaigns as well as alignment with the installed tokamak and ancillary system for each campaign. The discussions also covered non-tokamak research activities directly linked to the Research Plan such as the Neutral Beam Test Facility and Test Blanket Module research plans.Following this recent meeting of the expert group, participants have commenced writing the ITER Research Plan down to Levels 2 and 3. The final document, encompassing both levels, will be submitted for review by the ITER Science and Technology Committee (STAC) at its meeting in May 2025.

The European Domestic Agency Fusion for Energy (F4E) and subcontractors Ansaldo Nucleare, Westinghouse and Walter Tosto have completed all manufacturing activities on vacuum vessel sector #4. It will depart from Italy later this month. The exterior is smooth and polished, like that of an undersea vehicle or a spacecraft. The interior surfaces are a patchwork of interfacing elements—cartridges and other "connectors" designed to receive the components, like the blanket, that will face the plasma. And projecting out in two locations are the port stubs and port stub extensions that will create a corridor of connection between the exterior wall of the vacuum vessel and the cryostat a few metres away.The ITER vacuum vessel is made up of nine of these 40° sectors—each one slightly unique—that will be welded together along their bevel joint regions to form a torus-shaped plasma chamber. Each one is years in the making. Fusion for Energy, for example, has been collaborating with the AMW consortium for more than a decade, involving at least 150 professionals from 15 companies across Europe. According to their calculations, the completion of sector #4 has demanded 20,000 hours of machining and 100,000 hours of welding.The poster below shows how segments become a sector, and how a sector is integrated into the final torus. (It can be downloaded here.) In a short ceremony celebrating the completion of sector #4 Marc Lachaise, Director of Fusion for Energy, stated: “The completion of the second European sector of ITER’s vacuum vessel demonstrates yet again the exceptional manufacturing skills of our industry and its ability to apply quickly lessons learned from the first sector. It also illustrates how the European Union, through its participation in the biggest international fusion project, can successfully involve medium-sized companies, help them grow, and target overseas markets."Europe's first sector was delivered in October 2024. Production continues on Europe’s remaining three sectors, #9, #3 and #2, which will arrive over the next two years.See the full report on the Fusion for Energy website.

Sign up before 1 April 2025 for this year's ITER International School on the topic of "Integrated Modelling in Magnetic Fusion Plasmas." The school will take place in Aix-en-Provence, France, from 30 June to 4 July 2025. The scientific program is now available on the School's website. Program coordinators Xavier Litaudon from the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and Alberto Loarte from the ITER Organization have organized 15 lectures over five days, delivered by well-known experts in the field. A visit to the ITER site is planned on day one, with a tour of the worksite and visit talks from ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi (welcome address), Head of Science Alberto Loarte ("ITER status and application of integrated modelling to support design, operation and research plan") and Plasma Modelling & Analysis Section Leader Simon Pinches ("The ITER integrated modelling development program").The ITER International School aims to prepare young scientists and engineers for working in the field of nuclear fusion and in research applications associated with the ITER project. The school format reflects the necessity of training future professionals on a wide range of interdisciplinary subjects, equipping them with a broad understanding of the skills required to contribute effectively to ITER’s success. Due to the limited capacity of the 2025 School, all attendees are required to pre‐register.The deadline for pre-registration & abstract submission is 1 April 2025. See the website for all registration information. Don't hesitate to download the School poster for distribution in your institutes and universities.

Sector #8 has been transferred temporarily to the tokamak pit. The operation, which took place on 4 March, went smoothly. The transfer operation has been in planning for months, part of the unique logistics challenges involved with repairing sector #8 in a horizontal position. On Tuesday 4 March, the 440-tonne sector was successfully lowered into the pit, where it will be stored for approximately two weeks while the upending tool is reconfigured for its return.Sector #8 was delivered to the Assembly Hall and installed on the upending tool in the position it was repaired in—that is, with the repaired side facing the ceiling (let's call it side A).When it returns to the upending tool, it will have been rotated by the overhead cranes—specifically the dual crane heavy lifting beam that allows the cranes to work in tandem and facilitates the rotation of components. Side B will face the ceiling, and the sector can be returned to the Cryostat Workshop for the second phase of repair.In between these two operations, sector #8 will be stored temporarily in the pit. This teams need this time to adapt the interfacing components of the upending tool for the return of the sector. Side A and side B of the sector are not identical, and adjustments need to be made.The transfer of a massive component in the Assembly Hall is always a spectacular operation. See the transfer of sector #8 to the pit in the video below.