First Tritium as a Program Milestone

First tritium is the single milestone that converts the breeder from a physics demonstrator into a working foundry.

Why first tritium defines the program

Every earlier milestone, first plasma, the confinement gate, the magnet gate, builds toward one result: bred, recovered, and accounted tritium. First tritium, targeted near 2030 for the first-of-a-kind unit, is where the machine first produces its actual product.

The full chain in one event

First tritium requires the entire foundry chain to work at once: sustained D-T plasma near the design gain, a neutron flux consistent with 85.0 MW-class fusion power, a blanket that breeds tritium at a measured ratio, and a fuel loop that recovers and accounts for it. It is the integration test of the whole concept.

• Confirms the neutron economy closes into a saleable isotope stream
• Validates the breeding blanket at real, three-dimensional geometry
• Demonstrates tritium accountancy for product and regulatory purposes
• Establishes the baseline for the ~4 kg/yr tritium-class output figure

Reported against prediction

First tritium is reported measured-versus-predicted for neutron yield and breeding ratio, per the pre-registration discipline. This is where the open reconciliation between a design TBR of 1.8 and real three-dimensional net breeding is settled by data rather than argument.

First tritium is a target, not an achievement. It sits at the end of the roughly 3.5-year FOAK build. Until it is measured, the product figures on this site are design and simulation values.