The ATLAS experiment at the LHC: Status and Physics Prospects

The Large Hardon Collider (LHC) at CERN is now scheduled to begin operation late in 2009 at proton energies of 3.5 TeV. The LHC will open up a new energy regime in high-energy particle physics and it is likely that discoveries made at the experiments that analyse the LHC data will change the way we understand our universe. I will review the readiness of the ATLAS experiment for proton-proton collision data at the LHC, and the prospects for the much anticipated physics that will result from these collisions.