en.Wedoany.com Reported - The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Organization recently completed the hoisting of the sixth tokamak sector module, with two-thirds of the machine's ring-shaped core now in place. The sector module hoisted this time, numbered #1, weighs approximately 1,100 tonnes. The transfer operation extended from the assembly hall to the tokamak pit, lasted 30 hours, mobilized over 100 people, and concluded on July 28. Including the lifting rig, the suspended load approached 1,400 tonnes.
ITER's vacuum vessel is the plasma chamber that contains the fusion reaction and serves as the first safety barrier, with an internal volume of 1,400 cubic meters. It is composed of nine wedge-shaped steel sectors, each over 14 meters high and weighing 440 tonnes. Once assembled, the vacuum vessel will have an outer diameter of 19.4 meters, a height of 11.4 meters, and a weight of approximately 5,200 tonnes; after installing internal components such as blankets and divertors, the total weight will reach 8,500 tonnes. Each sector module comprises a vacuum vessel sector, two toroidal field coils, thermal shields, and auxiliary components, and is equipped with lifting devices and stabilizing beams for hoisting.
The vacuum vessel sectors are manufactured jointly by Europe and South Korea, with Europe responsible for 5 sectors and South Korea for 4. South Korea initially produced 2 sectors under its agreement with the ITER Organization, and in 2016 reached an additional agreement to take over production of 2 more sectors originally allocated to the European Union.
Since April 2025, the sector modules forming the core of the ITER device have been progressively installed into the tokamak pit. With the #1 module now in place, there are six modules in the pit: #1, #4, #5, #6, #7, and #8. The ITER Organization stated that experience gained from each successive module assembly and hoisting has improved work speed, efficiency, and predictability. The seventh sector module is expected to be transferred before the end of this year, and the final sector module is expected to be installed in place by mid-2027.
ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi said this progress is a clear sign of the accelerated machine assembly approach, noting that the team has translated lessons learned from each operation into greater efficiency, stronger coordination, and a more predictable assembly sequence.
Once all nine sector modules are in place, the team will undertake the complex work of connecting the sectors to complete the ring-shaped chamber.
ITER is a large-scale international fusion project aimed at building a tokamak device to demonstrate the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale carbon-free energy source. Its design goal is to achieve 500 MW of fusion power output for at least 400 seconds with 50 MW of plasma heating power input, requiring an additional approximately 300 MW of electrical input during operation, and ITER itself will not generate electricity. The project is being built through collaboration among 35 countries, with the European Union bearing nearly half of the construction costs and the remaining portion shared among six members: China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the United States. Construction began in 2010, and in 2016 the ITER Council postponed the target date for first plasma from 2018 to 2025. The revised project plan released in June 2024 proposes achieving deuterium-deuterium fusion operation by 2035, followed by the full magnetic energy and plasma current operation phase.
