Prompt dimuons and D meson production in heavy-ion collisions at the SPS

NA60, a follow-up of NA38/50 at the CERN-SPS, is a third generation heavy-ion experiment finally approved in November 2000 for heavy-ion runs in 2002 and 2003. This article will report about the main motivations which lead to this experiment, the main detector concept and the foreseen physics performance.