On November 18, the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (NRU MEPhI, the main university of the Rosatom State Corporation) opened the Center for Remote Participation (CDU), one of the communication nodes of the Unified Information Space for Thermonuclear Research created by Rosatom. The tokamak "MYTHIST-0" was also connected to the Unified Information Space. The event was held with the participation of Alexey Likhachev, Director General of the state corporation.
The Unified Information Space for Thermonuclear Research is a unique information network uniting the most important scientific centers of the country engaged in research in the field of controlled thermonuclear fusion. A CDU should be created in each scientific organization connected to a single space, which will provide network participants not only with access to the results of all scientific experiments, but also the opportunity to remotely participate in experiments at scientific facilities (including, in the future, to experiments at the international thermonuclear reactor ITER in France).
The event began with an inspection of the tokamak, as well as its control room, which now, as Stepan Krat, senior researcher at the Institute of Laser and Plasma Technologies at the National Research University of MEPhI, explained to the guests, can also be used to conduct experiments at other thermonuclear installations of Rosatom and the Russian Academy of Sciences.
After inspecting the tokamak, Alexey Likhachev and the rector of the MEPhI National Research University, Vladimir Shevchenko, conducted the official launch of the tokamak "MYTHIST-0" through the Central Department of the Unified Information Space. The first remote pulse of a training tokamak was observed in real time by scientists from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk and even from France. Colleagues have already received the results of the experiment and can work with them. In the same way, Russian scientists at the ITER tokamak will participate in the experiments, and students will have the opportunity to gain important experience.
The duration of the experiment conducted on November 18 was 20 milliseconds, the plasma temperature was 500,000 degrees. The data from the installation was immediately transferred to a single information space.
"The most important event took place – we connected the first training tokamak to a single information and communication space. This will ensure an influx of personnel into research related to thermodynamic reactions. In addition, we really hope that the unified information platform will be actively used for the design of the TRT tokamak, which today is the hope of all our thermonuclear research," the director of the ITER Design center (an institution of the Rosatom State Corporation) congratulated the participants of the tokamak launch at MEPhI on the VKS Anatoly Krasilnikov.
Alexey Likhachev noted that the creation of a tokamak at MEPhI has become one of the elements of the federal project "Thermonuclear and Plasma Technologies" implemented by Rosatom. The head of Rosatom thanked his colleagues who work together in the framework of a single ITER project throughout the vast expanse of Eurasia. He added that Russia remains one of the key participants in the project. "The importance of today's event – the launch of the tokamak – lies in the fact that MEPhI students have already had the opportunity from the first year to participate not in words, but in deeds in the implementation of the largest project on a planetary scale," he noted.
Vladimir Shevchenko noted that it is important at the university to train not only specialists who are able to exploit such installations like tokamak, but also developers who will be able to create fundamentally new thermonuclear devices. "In 2017, a group of our students, led by a young employee Stepan Krat, took the initiative to create a tokamak. It cannot be said that this idea of rhinestones has caused universal acceptance, because tokamaks are associated with very large and very complex installations. But everything worked out, and today we attended a landmark event – an experiment on an installation created by the hands of students. At MEPhI, we consider it very important to train, albeit in a small number, researchers who have an understanding of the principles of operation and skills in designing complex devices," he said.
