LHC out of action until June 2009

The LHC had barely when a connection between two huge magnets the report states.

This caused a ton of liquid helium to be released, damaging 53 of the magnets, which are used to direct the proton stream around the 27km instrument.

"We have a lot of work to do over the coming months," said LHC project Leader Lyn Evans.

"But we now have the roadmap, the time and the competence necessary to be ready for physics by summer. We are currently in a scheduled annual shutdown until May, so we're hopeful that not too much time will be lost."

To prevent the same thing happening again the LHC is to be upgraded with an early warning system for gas leaks. This will mean the installation of 100 miles of cabling and 2,000 electronic sensors, at a cost of around $25 million.

"The top priority for CERN today is to provide collision data for the experiments as soon as reasonably possible," said CERN Director General Robert Aymar.

"This will be in the summer of 2009."

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