LIGO Prepares for Its 1st Observing Run

LIGO Hanford Control Room
Image credit: Caltech/MIT/LIGO Lab

LIGO Laboratory, which has completed a major upgrade earlier this year, is preparing to start its first observing run. As a part of the preparation, LIGO will be undergoing final tests of its hardware and software systems during the month of August. On August 17, LIGO instruments at LIGO Hanford and LIGO Livingston will be fired up for a week for a prerun fine-tuning. Then in mid-September 2015, the 1st observing run will begin. It will last 3 months, during which the instruments at both locations will be running data collection around the clock.

Read more about preparations for first observations at the LIGO Laboratory website.