The Prague Asterix Laser System facility was conceived as a laboratory providing the basis for experimental research in the field of high-power lasers and their applications, notably in the physics of laser plasmas. It became operational in spring 2000.The principal experimental resource at PALS is the high-power iodine laser system Asterix IV. This instrument was developed at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, and with the latest upgrade in 1991 it provided irradiation facility at the 1 kJ energy level until May 1997. It has been exploited by a wide international research community, within the European Large-Scale Facilities scheme.The core of the PALS facility is the high-power iodine laser system Asterix IV. It is capable of delivering up to 1 kJ of energy at the fundamental wavelength 1.315 µm. This energy may be split to few auxiliary beams with controlled time shift from the main beam. All beams may be frequency doubled (wavelength 657 nm) or tripled (438 nm). At a pulse of about 350 ps, the laser produces power of 3 TW. The full energy shot can be fired each 25 minutes. The laser delivers a beam with superior spatial profile quality, and exhibits high stability of the output beam energy over a sequence of shots.