Today Michigan State University (MSU) held a groundbreaking ceremony at the site of the future Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) on the MSU campus in East Lansing, Michigan. 

More than 1,000 participants gathered to reflect on MSU’s journey to selection by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC) as the site for this new national user facility and also to recommit to the work that lies ahead.  Among these participants were members of the Michigan Congressional delegation, representatives from the State of Michigan, leaders from MSU, and representatives from the DOE Office of Science and the DOE-SC Nuclear Physics program.

FRIB is DOE-SC’s newest addition to its world-leading family of discovery machines supporting the mission of the Office of Nuclear Physics and serving nuclear scientists who will use it to conduct rare isotope research and to make discoveries.

In noting the FRIB Project team’s successful completion of concepts and designs that paved the way to civil and technical construction, MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon predicted, “FRIB will be the core of our nation’s research infrastructure, advancing knowledge in areas such as science, medicine, and homeland security, as well as providing answers to questions we have even yet to conceive.” (See MSU full statement at msutoday.msu.edu/news/2014/frib-groundbreaking-concept-becomes-reality/)

FRIB Project completion is scheduled for June 2022.