SPIDER in the roadmap of the ITER neutral beams

To reach fusion conditions and control plasma configuration in ITER, a suitable combination of additional heating and current drive systems is necessary. Among them, two Neutral Beam Injectors (NBI) will provide 33 MW hydrogen/deuterium particles electrostatically accelerated to 1 MeV; efficient gas-cell neutralisation at such beam energy requires negative ions, obtained by caesium-catalysed surface conversion of atoms inside the ion source. As ITER NBI requirements have never been simultaneously attained, a Neutral Beam Test Facility (NBTF) was set up at Consorzio RFX (Italy), including two experiments. MITICA is the full-scale NBI prototype with 1 MeV particle energy. SPIDER, with 100 keV particle energy, aims at testing and optimising the full-scale ion source: extracted beam uniformity, negative ion current density (for one hour) and beam optics (beam divergence < 7 mrad; beam aiming direction within 2 mrad). This paper outlines the worldwide effort towards the ITER NBI realisation: the main results of the ELISE facility (IPP-Garching, Germany), equipped with a halfsize source, are described along with the status of MITICA; specific issues are investigated by small specific facilities and by joint experiments at QST and NIFS (Japan). The SPIDER experiment, just come into operation, will profit from strong modelling activities, to simulate and interpret experimental scenarios, and from advanced diagnostic instruments, providing thorough plasma and beam characterisation. Finally, the results of the first experiments in SPIDER are presented, aimed at a preliminary source plasma characterisation by plasma light detectors and plasma spectroscopy.