FLASH, the XUV and soft X-ray free-electron laser at DESY, is currently undergoing the 2nd of two long upgrade shutdowns within the FLASH2020+ project. The 1st half of 2024 was dedicated to user operation. The upgrade shutdown started in June 2024, and we plan to come back to beam operation in August 2025. Here we will discuss the operational highlights of the first half of 2024, briefly describe the new features being implemented, and report on the shutdown status.
Vogt et al. (Wed,) studied this question.