The image doesn’t show a mission control center for space exploration; instead, it’s the control room of the EAST experi…
The image doesn’t show a mission control center for space exploration; instead, it’s the control room of the EAST experimental fusion reactor. Located at the Institute of Plasma Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, EAST has set a new record for plasma confinement—1,066 seconds. The previous record of 403 seconds was also achieved there in 2023. This is a major breakthrough.
The key takeaway is that physicists have developed a way to sustain plasma for over 1,000 seconds. ITER, the world’s largest fusion reactor under construction in France, is expected to operate using similarly long pulses. Chinese experts are actively contributing to the ITER project, making this achievement a win for the global scientific community.
Unfortunately, as is often the case with updates from Chinese research centers, the information provided is incomplete. For example, there is no mention of the plasma’s temperature. In previous EAST experiments, it reached 120 million degrees Celsius, whereas ITER’s plasma is expected to exceed 150 million degrees (and up to 300 million degrees at its core).
Nevertheless, this is excellent news. Now we wait to see how Japan responds. Over a year ago, experiments began at JT-60SA, currently the largest tokamak in operation. It is designed to confine plasma at temperatures of up to 200 million degrees.
