Preparing for ITER plasma operation

We report on progress made in a sequence of experiments at DIII-D addressing key questions and testing operational scenarios in preparation for early ITER operation. These experiments build on one another so their execution is divided roughly equally across the 2022-23 campaigns. The work informs how to best achieve and maintain the desired plasma conditions needed for ITER first plasma and PFPO-1 objectives. One pair of experiments is designed to improve the physics understanding of the evolution of plasma parameters in EC-assisted plasma initiation and the potential for generation of runaway electrons during Ohmic initiation. Another set of experiments is designed to first add capability to the DIII-D PCS to enable emulation of ITER plant control systems and then use this capability to accurately emulate the execution of planned ITER scenarios. The latter work has a particular focus on development and validation of algorithms for handling exceptional events, i.e., those events that require either an asynchronous change of control algorithm/objective or a switch to an alternate scenario and its associated control algorithms designed to mitigate the consequences of the event.