After completing the preparation of the sectors of the wheels TGC-1 (first layer of trigger chambers) and MDT (precision chambers) for the side C of ATLAS last spring, the work in building 180 has advanced quickly during the summer: all the sectors for TGC-2-C have been completed during the month of August; currently, two sectors for TGC-3-C are complete, and work is underway for three others. Similarly, assembly, integration and commissioning have progressed well also with the precision chambers, with 12 of the 16 sectors for MDT-A being complete now, and the end of this significant phase of work is only a few weeks ahead of us.

On Tuesday 26 September 2006 the ATLAS Collaboration was honoured by a very special visit to the detector in the underground cavern by Professor Stephen Hawking, the famous cosmologist holding the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University (position held by Isaac Newton in the 17th century).

The first few months of 2006 saw the delivery to CERN of the final components of the ATLAS semi-conductor tracker (SCT), namely the completed SCT end-caps.

The SCT barrel was inserted in the TRT on 17 February, just missing Valentine's day. This was a change of emphasis for the two detectors. In the preceeding months there had been a lot of focus on testing their performance. The TRT had been observing cosmic rays through several sectors of the barrel. The two detectors had to be painstakingly aligned to be concentric to within a millimetre.

During 2005, the preparation of the ATLAS Experiment has proceeded smoothly and many results were achieved.