EVERETT, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb 13, 2026--
Helion, a Washington-based fusion energy company, announced that its Polaris prototype has set new fusion industry benchmarks, becoming the first privately developed fusion energy machine to demonstrate measurable deuterium-tritium (D-T) fusion and achieve plasma temperatures of 150 million degrees Celsius (MºC). Both milestones mark significant breakthroughs in Helion’s vision to make commercially viable fusion energy a reality and are firsts for the private fusion industry.
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“We believe the surest path to commercializing fusion is building, learning and iterating as quickly as possible,” said David Kirtley, co-founder and CEO of Helion. “We’ve built and operated seven prototypes, setting and exceeding more ambitious technical and engineering goals each time. The historic results from our deuterium-tritium testing campaign on Polaris validate our approach to developing high power fusion and the excellence of our engineering.”
Helion began operating its 7th-generation Polaris prototype at the end of 2024. This January, it became the first and currently only private fusion energy machine to use deuterium-tritium fuel, demonstrating the company’s ability to operate and show scaling across multiple fuels. Helion was also the first company to receive regulatory approval to possess and use tritium for the purpose of demonstrating fusion energy production. Achieving thermonuclear fusion using deuterium-tritium fuel is one step in Polaris’ testing program. The company will continue testing to reach optimal temperatures for deuterium-helium-3 fusion, a fuel Helion will use for commercial operations.
“I am impressed with our nation’s ingenuity and the pace at which we are de-risking our path to fusion commercialization,” said Jean Paul Allain, Associate Director for Fusion Energy Sciences in the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. “Seeing the data from the Polaris test campaign, including record-setting temperatures and gains from the fuel mix in their system, indicates strong progress. Our ability to get fusion on the grid requires approaches that enable rapid turnaround in design and testing, and these results reflect the growing capability of the U.S. fusion ecosystem.”
“I had the opportunity to review diagnostic data from Helion,” said Ryan McBride, an expert in inertial confinement fusion, pulsed power, and plasma physics, with experience as a Department Manager at Sandia National Laboratories and as a professor of nuclear engineering, electrical engineering, and applied physics at the University of Michigan. “It is exciting to see evidence of D-T fusion and temperatures exceeding 13 keV or 150 million degrees Celsius, and I look forward to seeing more progress.”
In achieving plasma temperatures of 150MºC in Polaris, Helion broke its own commercial fusion industry record for plasma temperatures of 100MºC set by its 6th-generation Trenta prototype. Within the fusion industry, 100MºC is considered the threshold plasma temperature for a commercially relevant fusion machine. Helion will continue to increase plasma temperatures in Polaris to demonstrate that it can reliably operate with deuterium-helium-3, which will be relevant for future Helion commercial operations.
“After reviewing the latest results from the Polaris prototype operating on D-T, I am proud of how far the field has come since the earliest FRC work at UW and Los Alamos,” said Dr. Alan Hoffman, a leading expert on FRC plasmas with over 40 years’ experience developing fusion devices. FRC research in the U.S. first began at Los Alamos, was continued at a private company, Math Sciences North West, and, due to encouraging results, proceeded to the construction of the Large S device at the University of Washington under funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, led by Dr. Hoffman. “I continue to see the technology scaling and Helion’s plasma energy recovery enabling this technology for commercial scale.”
With its latest technical accomplishments, Helion continues to set the pace for the fusion industry, creating a path to produce low-cost, carbon-free power from fusion for commercial use. In July 2025, Helion began building on the site of Orion, its first commercial machine, in Malaga, Wash., which will deliver electricity from fusion to the grid for Microsoft.
About Helion
Helion is a fusion energy company focused on generating zero-carbon electricity from fusion. Its mission is to build the world’s first fusion power plant, enabling a future with unlimited clean electricity. To keep up with the latest progress, follow Helion on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and X.
Polaris during first deuterium-tritium pulse
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A new crew rocketed toward the International Space Station on Friday to replace the astronauts who returned to Earth early in NASA's first medical evacuation.
SpaceX launched the replacements as soon as possible at NASA’s request, sending the U.S., French and Russian astronauts on an expected eight- to nine-month mission stretching until fall. The four should arrive at the orbiting lab on Saturday, filling the vacancies left by their evacuated colleagues last month and bringing the space station back to full staff.
“It turns out Friday the 13th is a very lucky day,” SpaceX Launch Control radioed once the astronauts reached orbit. “That was quite a ride,” replied the crew's commander, Jessica Meir.
NASA had to put spacewalks on hold and deferred other duties while awaiting the arrival of NASA’s Meir and Jack Hathaway, France’s Sophie Adenot and Russia’s Andrei Fedyaev. They'll join three other astronauts — one American and two Russians — who kept the space station running the past month.
Satisfied with medical procedures already in place, NASA ordered no extra checkups for the crew ahead of liftoff and no new diagnostic equipment was packed. An ultrasound machine already up there for research went into overdrive on Jan. 7 when used on the ailing crew member. NASA has not revealed the ill astronaut’s identity or health issue. All four returning astronauts went straight to the hospital after splashing down in the Pacific near San Diego.
It was the first time in 65 years of human spaceflight that NASA cut short a mission for medical reasons.
With missions becoming longer, NASA is constantly looking at upgrades to the space station’s medical gear, said deputy program manager Dina Contella. “But there are a lot of things that are just not practical and so that’s when you need to bring astronauts home from space,” she said earlier this week.
In preparation for moon and Mars trips where health care will be even more challenging, the new arrivals will test a filter designed to turn drinking water into emergency IV fluid, try out an ultrasound system that relies on artificial intelligence and augmented reality instead of experts on the ground, and perform ultrasound scans on their jugular veins in a blood clot study.
They also will demonstrate their moon-landing skills in a simulated test.
Adenot is only the second French woman to launch to space. She was 14 when Claudie Haignere flew to Russia’s space station Mir in 1996, inspiring her to become an astronaut. Haignere traveled to Cape Canaveral to cheer her on.
Hathaway, like Adenot, is new to space, while Meir and Fedyaev are making their second station trip. Just before liftoff, Fedyaev led the crew in a cry of “Poyekhali" — Russian for “Let's Go” — the word uttered at liftoff by the world's first person in space, the Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarin, in 1961.
On her first mission in 2019, Meir took part in the first all-female spacewalk. The other half of that spacewalk, Christina Koch, is among the four Artemis II astronauts waiting to fly around the moon as early as March. A ship-to-ship radio linkup is planned between the two crews.
Meir wasn’t sure astronauts would return to the moon during her career. “Now we’re right here on the precipice of the Artemis II mission,” she said ahead of liftoff. “The fact that they will be in space at the same time as us … it’s so cool to be an astronaut now, it’s so exciting.”
SpaceX launched the latest crew from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Elon Musk’s company is preparing its neighboring Kennedy Space Center launch pad for the super-sized Starships, which NASA needs to land astronauts on the moon.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Crew 12 ESA astronaut Sophia Adenot, of France, leaves the Operations and Checkout building before heading to pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, on a mission to the International Space Station. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Crew 12 mission astronauts, from left, pilot Jack Hathaway, Russian cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev, commander Jessica Meir and ESA astronaut Sophia Adenot, of France, leave the Operations and Checkout building before heading to pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, on a mission to the International Space Station. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a Dragon spacecraft stands ready for launch on pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026 . (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Crew 12 astronauts, from left, pilot Jack Hathaway, Russian cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev, commander Jessica Meir and ESA astronaut Sophia Adenot, of France, leave the Operations and Checkout building before heading to pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, on a mission to the International Space Station. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
