The status of FAIR

This article provides an overall technical and scientific description of the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR), an international accelerator facility for research in Europe, to be constructed at the site of the GSI Laboratory at Darmstadt, Germany. The article includes: i) an outline of the accelerator systems and their performance characteristics; ii) a brief description of the research programs and the associated experimental facilities; iii) an overview of the legal and administrative framework; iv) a summary of the current status (as of January 2009).