COMPASS tokamak in Prague had its first plasma
Subsystems of the COMPASS facility have been commissioned and tested in recent months within the framework of reinstallation of the COMPASS Tokamak at the Institute of Plasma Physics AS, Czech Republic.
Integral technological tests of the facility were undertaken on 9 December 2008. On this date, the vacuum chamber was first conditioned by a glow discharge. Subsequently the correct cooperation of all the power systems was verified. A few minutes before noon the COMPASS tokamak was fuelled by the working gas and then a plasma discharge was successfully generated. The plasma discharge was proved by measurements of plasma electric current, of hydrogen light intensity and of plasma density via microwave interferometry. Thanks to these results, the integral technological tests of the COMPASS tokamak can be declared to be very successful.