The ALS-U project has been revising the project schedule and carefully reviewing it in collaboration with the Department of Energy to evaluate a potential new schedule. The shared goal is to complete the project efficiently and return the ALS to scientific use as early as possible.
While details on technical feasibility are still under evaluation, a promising scenario involves an accelerated plan with an extended shutdown for dark time starting as early as summer of 2026, lasting at least two years.
More information is available on the ALS-U timeline & facility impacts page.
Since an earlier dark time in 2026 is possible, our goal is to ensure that currently active proposals receive the beamtime needed to successfully conclude their experiments.
Changes to General User Proposals
We will open the September 2025 call only for Beamtime Requests (BTRs) on existing proposals for the 2026-1 (January–July 2026) cycle. We will not accept new General User Proposals for the 2026-1 (January–July) cycle. Users may submit a Beamtime Request (BTR) for 2026-1 on an existing active proposal. Users with proposals expiring in December 2025 will be granted one additional BTR cycle and will receive notification from the User Office when they may submit it. The deadline for BTRs will be extended to September 17.
RAPIDD and Approved Program Proposals
The RAPIDD access path will be open for urgent access requests and for experiments that can be finished within a single cycle.
RAPIDD access proposals may be submitted at any time starting September 15.
With ALS and PI concurrence, Approved Programs (APs) will be paused at the dark time and restart when collaborative access becomes available at the relevant beamline.
Contact: alsproposals@lbl.gov