The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is under construction to measure the
expansion history of the Universe using the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation technique.
The spectra of 35 million galaxies and quasars over 14000 deg(2) will be measured
during the life of the experiment. A new prime focus corrector for the KPNO Mayall
telescope will deliver light to 5000 fiber optic positioners. The fibers in turn feed
ten broad-band spectrographs. A consortium of Aix-Marseille University (AMU) and CNRS
laboratories (LAM, OHP and CPPM) together with LPNHE (CNRS, Universities Pierre et
Marie Curie and Paris-Diderot) and the WINLIGHT Systems company based in Pertuis (France),
are in charge of integrating and validating the performance requirements of the full
spectrographs. This includes the cryostats, shutters and other mechanisms. The first
spectrograph of the series of ten has been fully tested and the performance requirements
verified for the following items: focus, image quality, straylight, stability, detector
properties and throughput. We present the experimental setup, the test procedures
and the results.