Across land and sea
A fourth central solenoid module shipped by US ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ reached the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ site in the last days of 2023.
A 2,400-kilometre overland journey from the General Atomics factory in San Diego, California, to the Texas port of Houston; crossing the Atlantic into the Mediterranean, and riding a barge across the Berre inland sea, and finally a 104-kilometre road journey to the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ site ... that's what it takes to deliver each of the seven "modules" (six plus one spare) that are needed to assemble the ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ central solenoid, an 18-metre-tall, 1,000-tonne electromagnet sitting at the centre of the machine.
As the stacking and connecting of the first two modules progresses in the Assembly Hall, yet another one of these 110-tonne cylindrical components reached ±¬×ߺÚÁÏ in the early hours of 22 December 2023, bringing the total delivered to four.