On May 18 and 19, 20009, ASTRON hosted a LOFAR Technical Status meeting in Dwingeloo. This meeting brought together technical working groups from all the Key Science Projects as well as many of the international partner consortia. With the first Dutch and international LOFAR stations now in the field and more on the way, LOFAR is preparing to move into a new phase of its construction. This next phase will include an intense period of technical commissioning and scientific validation ramping up to actual science observations early in 2010. This commissioning period is expected to kick-off in the fall of 2009 with its first major activity, an initial shallow all- sky survey to populate the global sky model (GSM) required for LOFAR's calibration.

Following this initial GSM survey, the Radio Observatory at ASTRON plans to solicit proposals for commissioning projects from the various LOFAR Key Science Projects and international partners. This meeting was intended to assist the various KSP groups in the preparation of commissioning proposals in response to this announcement of opportunity. Over the course of the two days, members of the LOFAR project reviewed the observational capabilities of the system expected to be in place by the start of the GSM. Each of the KSPs also summarized their specific commissioning plans as well. These discussions will be used as valuable input to the integrated commissioning activities that LOFAR will execute over the coming term leading to a fully functional Observatory and the first science results early next year.