Status of the KATRIN Neutrino Mass Experiment*

The kinematics of tritium beta decay provide a model-independent way to measure the mass of the neutrino in the quasi-degenerate regime. The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino experiment (KATRIN), presently under construction in Germany, will attain a sensitivity of 0.2 eV in the neutrino mass. We will provide an update on the status of KATRIN, whose spectrometer-and-detector section has entered a major commissioning phase.