The goal of the DIRAC experiment at CERN (PS212) is to measure the π+π− atom lifetime with 10% precision. Such a measurement would yield a precision of 5% on the value of the S-wave ππ scattering lengths combination ∣a0−a2∣
Nearby in the stack
. Based on part of the collected data we present a first result on the lifetime,
τ=[2.91−0.62+0.49]×10−15
s, and discuss the major systematic errors. This lifetime corresponds to