SPIDER inaugurated in Italy
5-4-3-2-1... plasma! Following our successful delivery of SPIDER to Italy last year, the groundbreaking system was officially inaugurated in Padua. The ceremony took place in front of European and local officials, international partners, the press and our teams from Thales MIS. After 10 years of close collaboration with a host of international contributors, the world's most powerful negative ion source, SPIDER was launched on Monday 11 June at the Consorzio RFX facility in Padua, Italy.

Charles-Antoine Goffin, Director of Defence Science Industry Business Segment (DEFSI) (far left) joins European and local politicians, representatives of ITER, Fusion for Energy and other major contributors on stage for the launch of SPIDER .

A small step for ITER, a giant leap for science

ITER is an international project aiming to demonstrate the scientific and technical feasibility of thermonuclear fusion as a new source of energy. Fusion energy does not produce any greenhouse gas emissions or long-term radioactive waste. Another major advantage is its unparalleled efficiency as an energy source. ITER’s scientific objective is to produce an energy output 10 times greater than its energy input. For these reasons, thermonuclear energy is considered the energy of the future.

ITER aims to be the first fusion prototype capable of generating 500MW of thermal energy from an input of 50MW. Eventually, ITER's tokamak will combine three methods of external heating – one of which will be SPIDER – to produce the 50MW of power to drive the system. SPIDER uses high-precision mechanics for the acceleration and neutralization of deterium and the injection of high energy neutrons in the plasma, which is confined in the reactor.

Watch ITER’s feature below!

 

In front of European and local politicians, representatives from ITER, SPIDER, Fusion for Energy and over 100 companies and startups who contributed to the project, the first of SPIDER’s plasma-generating experiment was launched. Charles-Antoine Goffin, Director of Defence Science Industry Business Segment (DEFSI) for Thales MIS, took part in a round table discussion in order to talk about the benefits and challenges of the project, as well as the extensive cooperation with our partners CECOM Srl, E.Zanon SpA and Galvano-T GmbH. Congratulations to all those from Thales who worked so hard on the project!

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