The ITER international fusion project has reached a critical milestone with the delivery of the final vacuum vessel sector to the site in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance, France. This component is the last of nine massive steel sections required to complete the tokamak's core structure, which will house superheated plasma for fusion experiments.
The completed toroidal chamber will measure approximately 19.4 meters in diameter with an internal volume of about 1400 cubic meters. Each sector stands 14 meters tall and weighs roughly 440 tons. Once fully assembled with internal components like the blanket and divertor, the entire vacuum vessel will reach a total weight of approximately 8500 tons.
Manufacturing of the nine sectors was split between Europe and South Korea, with the latter producing four units and European firms supplying five. The European consortium AMW, including Ansaldo Nucleare, Westinghouse Electric Company, and Walter Tosto, dedicated over 2 million man-hours to the project, involving approximately 15 additional companies in the supply chain.
ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi confirmed that all primary tokamak components are now on-site, including toroidal and poloidal field coils, correction magnets, central solenoid elements, and thermal shielding. The project, involving 35 countries, aims to validate fusion technologies at a scale far exceeding previous experimental facilities.
