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In this issue:
LCLS/SSRL Users' Meeting Covers Recent Successes and Future Plans
LSST Camera Meeting Gets Down to Nuts & Bolts

SLAC Today

Tuesday - October 26, 2010

LCLS/SSRL Users' Meeting Covers Recent Successes and Future Plans

(Photo - talk in Panofsky Auditorium)
SSRL Director Chi-Chang Kao presented at the LCLS/SSRL Users' Meeting last week. (Photo courtesy Nik Stojanovic.)

Last week's Linac Coherent Light Source and Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource Users' Meeting packed more than 30 opening and plenary presentations and 60 breakout workshop talks into four and a half days, offering LCLS and SSRL users and staff the opportunity to learn about the latest plans, developments and user research at SLAC's lightsource facilities.

"It's really been an extraordinary year here at SLAC," SLAC Director Persis Drell said in her opening talk. "A year ago, the LCLS was just starting user-assisted commissioning, and we really were wondering how it was all going to go. It's gone brilliantly. In the past year we've also built the strongest possible team to lead SSRL into the future, while being mindful of the needs of its users."

The past year, Drell said, has seen more than 90 percent of scheduled beamtime delivered to LCLS end stations, and in that time the machine has been "operating more reliably and with far more flexibility than we had any right to expect." Meanwhile, SSRL delivered more than 95 percent of scheduled beamtime, serving more than 1400 users at 26 experimental end stations.

"We are very excited about the near- and long-term future of SLAC," Drell told attendees, "and we are thrilled to have you here to share it with us."  Read more...

LSST camera workshop attendees. (Photo by Lauren Rugani.)

LSST Camera Meeting Gets Down to Nuts & Bolts

Last week SLAC hosted a collaborative workshop for the groups working on the 3200-megapixel camera that will be installed aboard the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. Sessions addressed the technical progress of the camera's optical and electronic systems, and participants discussed preparations for the project's upcoming Critical Decision reviews.

"Given the Astro2010 recommendation for LSST, the project now has momentum and the Department of Energy has been encouraging about moving forward," said LSST Deputy Project Director Steve Kahn of SLAC. "While we have had a concept for the camera for several years, we are now getting down to the nuts and bolts of the technical design, and wrestling with the requirements on the various components and the interfaces between them."

The LSST was ranked as the top ground-based astrophysics project in the Astro2010 report, released in August by the National Research Council. The Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at SLAC is leading the design and construction of the six-foot-tall, 6000-pound camera.

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