... This laser, and four further similar units (including one spare) that will be delivered later, constitute key elements of the new facility and this acceptance marks a major step forward for the project. ... After three months of acceptance testing at ESO, the project team was very happy with the performance of the new hardware, which holds great promise for simple and stable operation on the VLT in the future. ... Semi-technical paper about laser development for sodium laser guide stars at ESO . ...