Martinod, Marc AntoineDefrère, DenisIreland, Michael J.Kraus, StefanMartinache, FrantzTuthill, Peter G.Allouche, FatméBouzerand, EmilieBryant, JuliaCarter, JoshChhabra, SorabhCourtney-Barrer, BenjaminCrous, FredCvetojevic, NickDandumont, ColinErtel, SteveGardner, TylerGarreau, GermainGlauser, Adrian M.Haubois, XavierLabadie, LucasLagarde, StéphaneLancaster, DanielLaugier, RomainMazzoli, AlexandraMeilland, AnthonyMissiaen, KwintenMorel, SébastienMortimer, Daniel J.Norris, BarnabyPaul, JyotirmayRaskin, GertRobbe-Dubois, SylvieRobertson, J. GordonSanny, AhmedSchuhler, NicolasSnaith, OwainTaras, Adam2025-05-232025-05-2397815106751310277-786Xhttp://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85208448313&partnerID=8YFLogxKhttps://hdl.handle.net/1885/733751805ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer has a history of record-breaking discoveries in astrophysics and significant advances in instrumentation. The next leap forward is its new visitor instrument, called Asgard. It comprises four natively collaborating instruments: HEIMDALLR, an instrument performing both fringe tracking and stellar interferometry simultaneously with the same optics, operating in the K band; Baldr, a Strehl optimizer in the H band; BIFROST, a spectroscopic combiner to study the formation processes and properties of stellar and planetary systems in the Y-J-H bands; and NOTT, a nulling interferometer dedicated to imaging nearby young planetary systems in the L band. The suite is in its integration phase in Europe and should be shipped to Paranal in 2025. In this article, we present details of the alignment and calibration unit, the observing modes, the integration plan, the software architecture, and the roadmap to completion of the project.M-A.M. has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101004719. SK acknowledges support from STFC Consolidated Grant (ST/V000721/1). D.D. acknowledges support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. CoG - 866070). S.K., S.C., J.P., and O.S. acknowledge support from an ERC Consolidator Grant (\u201CGAIA-BIFROST\u201D, grant agreement No. 101003096). A.T., P.T., J.B., F.C. and B.N. acknowledge support from Astralis - Australia's optical astronomy instrumentation Consortium - through the Australian Government's National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) Program as well as an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Infrastructure Funding (LIEF) grant LE220100126. This work used the ACT, SA and Sydney nodes of the NCRIS-enabled Australian National Fabrication Facility. D.M. and O.S. acknowledge support from STFC Consolidated Grant (ST/V000721/1). S.E. is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through the Astrophysics Decadal Survey Precursor Science program (Grant No. 80NSSC23K1473).enPublisher Copyright: © 2024 SPIE.exoplanetshigh angular resolutionhigh contrast imaginginfraredintegrated-opticslong baseline interferometryoptical fiberswavefront control202410.1117/12.301629685208448313