LHC Repairs to Cost $21 Million

Via Physorg.com -

Fixing the world's largest atom smasher will cost at least 25 million francs ($21 million) and may take until early summer, its operator said Monday.

An electrical failure shut down the Large Hadron Collider on Sept. 19, nine days after the $10 billion machine started up with great fanfare.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research recently said that the repairs would be completed by May or early June. Spokesman James Gillies said the organization know as CERN is now estimating the restart will be at the end of June or later.

"If we can do it sooner, all well and good. But I think we can do it realistically (in) early summer," he said.

The organization has blamed the shutdown on the failure of a single, badly soldered electrical connection.

The atom smasher operates at temperatures colder than outer space to get maximum efficiency and experts needed to gradually warm the damaged section to better assess it, he said.

"Now the sector is warm so they are able to go in and physically look at each of the interconnections," Gillies told The Associated Press.

The cost of the work will fall within the organization's existing budget, Gillies said.

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Scientists have taken the setback in stride, saying that particle colliders always have such problems in the startup phase.