NEAR-TERM DIRECTIONS IN THE WORLD STELLARATOR PROGRAM

Interest in stellarators has increased because of the progress being made in the development of this concept and the inherent advantages of stellarators as candidates for an attractive, steady-state fusion reactor. Three new stellarator experiments started operation in 1988, and three more are scheduled to start in the next few years. In addition, design studies have started on large next-generation stellarator experiments for the mid-1990's. These devices are designed to test four basic approaches to stellarator configuration optimization. Ways in which these devices complement each other in exploring the potential of the stellarator concept and the main issues that they will address during the next decade are described.