After a short 3 day shut down used for equipment maintenance, the PS Complex restarted on the 23^rd September for the second operational period lasting 11 weeks. The main difference from the previous period was the replacement of the proton operation for SPS by Pb ions supplying fixed target physics.

The performance with Pb ions was very good with an integrated production of 1.61 10¹⁶ charges of Pb ⁵³⁺ at PS extraction. This figure is a new record for the PS Complex, the previous one dating from 1996 with a total of 1.17 10¹⁶ charges of Pb ⁵³⁺ The average daily production was increased by 16% in comparison with 1996. Unfortunately, the last two weeks of the run were affected by two major problems. The Linac3 was stopped for 36 hours for the renovation of the ion source and the PS injection septum magnet was down for 10 hours due to a vacuum leak. We must also mention EDF critical days which interrupted the operation for SPS during 6 days between the 16^th November and the 4^th December. In spite of these problems, the lead ion beam availability was 92% over the period.