The Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan is extending their spring shutdown by several weeks, which will disrupt planned operations in May and June.

On April 5, due to several cases of COVID-19 among staff members, the facility was moved to a mode intended to prevent equipment damage while minimizing the staff needed to run the facility. CLS says that resulted in significant delays to planned essential maintenance work.

Users will not be allowed onsite until further notice.

On top of that, after a major power outage on April 8, a leak was discovered in the liquid helium transfer line. This has affected the CLS storage ring.

There will be no user beam until June 18 at the earliest, with the remainder of beamtime in June also at risk.