JT-60SA opens call for researchers in commissioning and data analysis

JT-60SA has opened a June 9 call that turns “commissioning and data analysis” into hands-on work on one of fusion’s biggest machines: new ports for high auxiliary heating power, an inertially cooled carbon divertor with a cryopump, stabilizing plates, in-vessel coils and a massive gas injection system. The deadline for applications is July 3, and the ask is aimed as much at researchers who want to work on installations and commissioning as at those who want to dig into machine data from integrated commissioning and the experimental campaign.

The roadmap behind the call is straightforward even if the machine is not. JT-60SA reached first plasma on October 23, 2023, with a plasma current of about 130 kA, after being fully assembled in March 2020. At that point ITER described it as the world’s largest operational superconducting tokamak, and the machine went on to produce diverted plasmas during the early tests that followed the official inauguration on December 1, 2023.

Now the project is in ME1, or Maintenance and Enhancement 1, where the work is not decorative. The new ports are there to support higher auxiliary heating power. The carbon divertor and cryopump are part of the machine’s effort to handle exhaust and heat loads. The stabilizing plates, fitted with full carbon armours, are meant to protect in-vessel components on the outboard side and help tame vertical displacement events and ideal MHD instabilities in high-beta plasmas. In-vessel coils and the massive gas injection system are there to sharpen control and prepare the machine for harsher, more demanding operation.

JT-60SA’s operating plan still starts with carbon-facing components before any later move to a tungsten-coated carbon metal-wall environment, once plasma control systems are mature. That is the real point of ME1: make the machine ready for a more serious run, then feed OP2 with cleaner control, better installed hardware and better diagnostics. OP2 officially started in 2026, with commissioning already underway for the fast plasma position control power supply and several error field correction coils, and the next steps run through room-temperature non-vacuum work, high-vacuum checks, cool-down and energizing the superconducting magnets.

The human side is the other half of the story. JT-60SA says about 280 European and Japanese scientists already collaborate on the experiment team, and a 2025 proposal call drew more than 150 submissions. This latest call widens that base again, pulling outside expertise into the machine just as it shifts from proving it can fire to proving it can be run, tuned and trusted for the campaign planned for the second half of 2026.