The initial stage of the ISAC-II upgrade consisting of the installation of a heavy ion superconducting linac has been successfully commissioned. This milestone makes possible the acceleration of radioactive ions above the Coulomb barrier. In brief, the ISAC (Isotope Separator and Accelerator) facility[1], operational since 1998, includes a 500 MeV proton beam (I ≤ 100 μA) from the TRIUMF cyclotron impinging on one of two thick targets, an online source to ionize the radioactive products, a mass-separator, an accelerator complex, and experimental areas. The original accelerator chain includes a 35 MHz RFQ, to accelerate beams of A/q ≤ 30 from 2keV/u to 150keV/u and a post stripper, 106 MHz drift tube linac (DTL) to accelerate ions of A/q ≤ 6 to a final energy fully variable from 0.15 MeV/u to 1.5 MeV/u primarily for nuclear astrophysics investigations.