On 28 November, an official ceremony of launching of the high-technology line for assembling and cryogenic testing of superconducting magnets was held in the Veksler and Baldin Laboratory of High Energy Physics JINR.

The ceremony was attended by leaders of the projects NICA and FAIR (Darmstadt, Germany), the City Administration of Dubna, representatives of scientific groups.

In his welcoming speech, JINR Vice-Director, Academician G.V. Trubnikov noted: “Five years ago, after a long debate at one of the JINR Directorate’s meetings, it was decided to establish the factory of superconducting magnets here in Dubna. During four years, the unique on a global scale production for testing and certifying of superconducting magnets for the projects NICA and FAIR have been established starting from scratch. This factory was established jointly by intellectual and financial efforts, together with our partners from Germany.”

VBLHEP Director and leader of the NICA project Professor V.D. Kekelidze reminded the participants about the main stages of the project development, technological achievements which have influenced the development of accelerator physics essentially. He also emphasized that the technology can be applied not only to the NICA and FAIR projects, but also to a much wider range of purposes. Technical Director and FAIR Project Leader J. Henschel, in his turn, congratulated the audience on this significant event and wished every success in work.

The official congratulation of Dubna City Mayor V.B. Mukhin stated: “I am confident that joint work of JINR and FAIR serves not only purposes of science. It serves as a unifying element for citizens, as well as for young people from different countries that are just studying and preparing to do their life’s choices. And our work, the work of administrative bodies, will focus on the most effective combination of all aspects of this great venture.”

The line was ceremonially launched by pressing the symbolic button, which “brought to life” screens of the monitoring panel and news ticker appeared on the information display.

VBLHEP Deputy Director Professor H. Khodzhibagiyan guided a tour for the participants of the ceremony and journalists. In the frames of the event, a technical meeting was held, where reports on establishment of magnets were presented, as well as the signing of the Protocol of the commissioning of the test facility was held.