LHC operation in 2015 and prospects for the future

In 2015 LHC started operation at a beam energy of 6.5 TeV. After a two month beam commissioning period, first collisions were delivered in June 2015. To reach nominal performance with a bunch spacing of 25 ns, the first main hurdle was the conditioning of the vacuum chamber to suppress the phenomenon of electron clouds. The conditioning lasted for the rest of 2015 run, the LHC was operated at the limit of stability of the beams and of the cryogenic system. In November 2015 2244 bunches were stored in the machine, just 20% short of the nominal filling. This document will explain the challenges that had to be mastered in 2015. From the state of the LHC at the end of the 2015 run, projections for the performance for the period 2016-2018 will be estimated.