Signal Korean Scientists Created an "Artificial Sun" That Ran for 102 Seconds / Helion secures world's first regulatory licenses for fusion power plant

Summary

South Korea's KSTAR reactor sustained a 100-million-degree-Celsius plasma for a record 102 seconds, extending its own 2024 record of 48 seconds and, following a full tungsten-divertor upgrade, becoming the first tokamak to hold that temperature in a fully tungsten-walled configuration, eliminating earlier carbon plasma-facing tiles and a related tritium-retention concern. KFE president Suk Jae Yoo said the result accelerates Korea's K-DEMO programme, which targets a 200 MWe demonstration reactor in the late 2030s, and the data also feeds into ITER's tungsten-divertor design, confirmed by the ITER Council in 2024 as the baseline plasma-facing surface for deuterium-tritium operations. Separately, on 16 June 2026 Helion Energy became the first company in the world to secure the regulatory licenses needed to build a fusion power plant, receiving a Radioactive Materials License and a Radioactive Air Emissions License from the Washington State Department of Health for its Orion facility in Malaga, WA. Washington regulates fusion under the byproduct-material framework rather than as a fission reactor, per the bipartisan ADVANCE Act of 2024, and Helion is also pursuing a first-of-its-kind transmission interconnection agreement with Chelan County Public Utility District. Helion targets delivering 50 megawatts to Microsoft under an existing power purchase agreement by 2028, and raised $465 million in a June 2026 Series G round at a $15.5 billion valuation, bringing total funding to roughly $1.5 billion.