MOSCOW, June 19. /TASS/. Russia supplied unique superconductors for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in June and implemented in full its second agreement on creating systems for the reactor of the future, the press office of the ITER Russian Project Center announced on Tuesday.

"Superconductors of the poloidal field for the magnetic system of the future installation were manufactured and supplied to the ITER International Organization in full," the press office said in a statement.

The superconducting electromagnetic system is one of the key and most expensive parts of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, which the international community is building in the south of France close to the Cadarache technological research center. The agreement on manufacturing and delivering the superconductor intended for the production of poloidal field coils was signed between the ITER Organization and the Russian ITER Agency in 2009.

A superconductor is a superconducting cable packed into metal sheath and composed of strands - a unique composite material containing about 5,000 finest superconducting fibers. In order to fulfil its commitments to the ITER Organization, Russia set up the production of strands on the premises of the Chepetsk Mechanical Plant (the town of Glazov in the Republic of Udmurtia).

In the process of manufacturing unique equipment, Russia concluded a bilateral agreement with the European ITER Agency, under which superconducting strands and cables were manufactured in the Russian Federation while the work to make the conductor’s sheath, pack the cable into the sheath and tighten the conductor was carried out by European partners.

‘This is already the second out of 25 systems within the scope of Russia’s responsibility, which the Russian side successfully completed, and this was confirmed by an official protocol of the ITER International Organization," the statement says.

ITER project

The ITER project is being implemented by seven partners (the European Union, India, China, South Korea, Russia, the United States and Japan) next to the Cadarache technological research center (Provence-Alpes-C·te d’Azur, France). ITER is based on the tokamak system developed by Soviet scientists and considered as the most promising installation for controlled thermonuclear fusion. The project aims to demonstrate that thermonuclear energy can be used on an industrial scale.

The ITER project is expected to produce the first plasma in 2025. By its scope, ITER can be compared to such projects as the International Space Station (ISS) and the Large Hadron Collider. The Russian side was assigned the task to manufacture and deliver 25 hi-tech systems for the reactor of the future.