Release of LCLS Updated Operations Schedule
Dear LCLS User Community,
The start of 2023 has been challenging for LCLS as a facility, with a pause in operations necessary to improve and strengthen the safety protocols at SLAC. We recognize the impact this has had on you as a user community and are happy to now be in a position to announce a restart of the user program.
LCLS and SLAC are coming out of this stronger and more prepared for the future. We are all excited, and we hope you are as well, that a restart of LCLS user activities is near. An updated operations schedule has been released with a return of users to LCLS planned in mid-July. There is still some uncertainty over this date and on operations over the coming months, but we feel this is the right balance to strike to allow us all to prepare.
We are additionally very excited that LCLS-II superconducting beam commissioning is underway again, with good progress over the past few weeks, leading to an expected “first light” in September 2023. This will set the stage for instrument commissioning activities to be followed by an Early Science program on the new LCLS-II instruments that will involve the user community under the leadership of LCLS staff. This will kick off the new era of LCLS-II high repetition rate beam, with full user experiments for Run 22 planned to begin in early 2024.
We wish to apologize for the impact this break in service has caused, and to thank all of you for your patience and understanding for what has been a difficult year. We look forward to welcoming you back to LCLS to return to cutting-edge scientific discovery, with unique new capabilities from LCLS-II opening what will be a new era in X-ray and FEL science.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Mike Dunne, LCLS Director
Sebastien Boutet, LCLS Head of Operations
Leilani Conradson, LCLS User Office Manager
