A review of FRIB Experimental Systems by the Experimental Systems Advisory Committee (ESAC) was held 2-4 September. This was the first ESAC under the new chair, Jim Kerby (Argonne National Laboratory), who replaced long-time chair Jay Marx. Other reviewers included Michael Rowe (consultant), Jerry Nolen (Argonne National Laboratory), Kris Anderson (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory), I-Yang Lee (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Jens Dilling (TRIUMF), and Toshiyuki Kubo (RIKEN).

The main focus of the meeting was to assess Experimental Systems Division progress in construction, especially since the last ESAC six months ago, and to provide advice to help ESD with the November U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science review. ESAC answered all charge questions affirmatively. ESAC found that the start of procurements is going well (50 percent of procurements are committed and 6 percent received) and that technical reviews have gone well to date. ESAC stated that the increase in non-conventional utility cost needs to be described with more clarity and that FRIB should conduct a full and complete ESD cost review. ESAC found that the project is appropriately addressing almost all recommendations, and that ongoing recommendations, in particular those related to staffing need more attention.