Hyperion Fueling and Pellet Injection
Fueling systems replace burned deuterium and tritium, with frozen pellets fired deep into the plasma to reach the core.
Feeding the fire
A burning plasma consumes deuterium and tritium and must be continuously refueled to keep going. Simply puffing gas at the edge does not work well, because the hot plasma stops cold gas at its boundary before it can reach the core where fusion happens. Hyperion therefore uses pellet injection.
How pellet fueling works
- Deuterium and tritium are frozen into small solid pellets.
- The pellets are fired at high speed through a vessel port toward the plasma.
- A solid pellet penetrates far deeper than gas before it ablates, delivering fuel closer to the core.
- The ablated fuel is then ionized and confined.
Why core fueling matters
Fusion power scales steeply with core density, so getting fuel into the core rather than the edge directly affects performance. Pellet fueling also gives control over the density profile, which interacts with confinement and stability. It is a control knob, not just a resupply line.
Tritium accounting
Fueling is where the breeding loop closes on the machine side. Tritium bred in the blanket, processed by the tritium plant, is frozen into pellets and fired back into the plasma. The tritium breeding ratio of 1.8 exists precisely so this loop can run with margin to spare.
In the model
The fueling line is shown entering through a vessel port with its trajectory toward the plasma core. See the vessel ports it uses and the tritium plant interface that supplies its tritium.