March 11, 2011, an infamous day that rattled Japan after the country was struck by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and powerful tsunami. Among the casualties was the Fukushima nuclear plant, which suffered radiation leaks and permanent damage to a number of its reactors.
A massive evacuation effort followed in fear of a radiation exposure, and to this day the country is still attempting clean-up efforts.
Potentially playing a key role in the post-2011 meltdown, a robot has started examining radioactive fuel at the nuclear plant on Wednesday, according to AFP. The robot was sent down to assess whether the melted fuel would “crumble upon impact,” or verify that it’s stable enough to be picked up for removal.
The complex mission is taking place at the plant’s No. 2 reactor, which is one of three that melted down after the 2011 incident.
Despite harsh conditions, the robot was performing as planned during the mission’s initial hours. “So far no problems have been reported,” a spokeswoman for the plant’s operator TEPCO told AFP soon after the operation began.
The following day, the robotic test yielded good news. It was able to pick up five pebble-sized pieces of radioactive fuel, holding them 5 cm (2 in.) in the air.
“We were able to confirm that the fuel debris can be moved,” says spokeswoman Yuka Matsubara to AFP. “We accomplished the objective of this test.”
In March 2020, the company will prepare to remove a sample of radioactive fuel from the site.
According to AFP, robots have already given experts a visual picture of the melted fuel, but this is the first time a robot is determining the fuel’s fragility. Melted fuel removal is believed to be “the most difficult part of the massive clean-up operation,” and its official removal date is slated to begin in 2021, AFP reports.