Commissioning the ATLAS silicon microstrip tracker

The ATLAS Semi-Conductor Tracker (SCT) has been installed in the ATLAS cavern, and all electrical, optical and cooling services has been connected and extensively tested. The SCT was successfully integrated into combined ATLAS running, and was commissioned using both cosmic data taking and stand-alone calibration runs. Problems with the cooling system greatly reduced the available time for calibration testing and running. The problems were resolved and SCT was fully cooled down and ready for data taking during first beam on the 10^th of September. Unfortunately due to an accelerator accident shortly after startup no collision data will be taken during this year, and ATLAS has therefore instead focused on taking cosmic data. The cosmic data taking periods were used to test and tune the various online and offline software, and the data will also be used for alignment purposes. Achievements and results from the commissioning of the SCT will be presented in this paper. The performance of the SCT, as the level of noise and working channels, is well within the ATLAS specification.