Overview

• The 270,000‑pound module is slated to leave Poway in about six weeks, traveling by specialized truck to the Houston Ship Channel, by ship to Marseilles, then by road to the ITER site.
• Five modules have already arrived overseas and a sixth is currently en route to France, with this final unit serving as the project’s spare.
• Stacking six identical units will create a nearly 60‑foot‑tall, 14‑foot‑wide magnet weighing more than 1,000 tons that General Atomics scientists say could lift an aircraft carrier.
• All seven modules were fabricated at General Atomics in California and were jointly designed with Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
• ITER is a 35‑nation research project with the U.S. covering about 9% of costs in exchange for full access to data, and its start of research operations is targeted for 2034 after delays and more‑than‑doubled cost estimates.