Latest news from the YETS: On the home straight, handover to operations in sight
With the PS Booster already in its hardware commissioning phase and the PS being handed over to the operations teams this week, the injector chain is almost ready for the restart of the LHC run, planned for the end of March.
After an intense maintenance campaign over the last few weeks, the PS is now being cleaned and prepared for commissioning.
At the SPS, the last access for YETS activities is planned for Friday, 19 February. More than 560 interventions have taken place over the past eight weeks. Since the beginning of the technical stop, 14 magnets have been changed and three more will be replaced before commissioning starts. The campaign for identifying obsolete cables is progressing well and will be completed on schedule.
The LHC operators are eager to restart the physics run around the end of March. For the time being, all maintenance operations are progressing according to schedule. In particular, all the repairs involving the cryogenic equipment have been completed but inspections are still under way to identify and fix any possible leaks. Wherever new hardware (in particular for the LHC beam absorber for injection, the so-called TDI) has been installed, the final position has been validated using X-ray technology. The cabling campaign is continuing, with new cables being installed for the ATLAS and TOTEM experiments.
A list of tests to be carried out in order to validate all the magnet circuits is being prepared by teams in the Technology department. New Electrical Quality Assurance (ELQA) tests have also been added to the list of jobs to be completed before powering. The Departmental Safety Officer (DSO) test will trigger the handover of the LHC to the operations teams.
