The Neutrino Beam for the MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search) Experiment at Fermilab

On January 21$^{\rm st}$, 2005 the NuMI (Neutrinos at the Main Injector) neutrino beamline delivered its first neutrino beam to the MINOS experiment. During its first year of operation the NuMI beamline has delivered over $1 \times 10^{20}$ protons-on-target to the MINOS experiment. The NuMI proton beamline is one of the most heavily instrumented beamlines in high energy physics. This has enabled the MINOS experiment to characterize and study the primary proton beam characteristics as well as the secondary neutrino beam. We present a review of the NuMI beamline performance in 2005 and discuss the implications of beam performance on the MINOS experiment's neutrino physics program.