  The Gaia-ESO Public Spectroscopic Survey (GES) is conducting a large-scale
study of multi-element chemical abundances of some 100 000 stars in the Milky
Way with the ultimate aim of quantifying the formation history and evolution of
young, mature and ancient Galactic populations. However, in preparing for the
analysis of GES spectra, it has been noted that atomic oscillator strengths of
important Fe I lines required to correctly model stellar line intensities are
missing from the atomic database. Here, we present new experimental oscillator
strengths derived from branching fractions and level lifetimes, for 142
transitions of Fe I between 3526 {\AA} and 10864 {\AA}, of which at least 38
are urgently needed by GES. We also assess the impact of these new data on
solar spectral synthesis and demonstrate that for 36 lines that appear
unblended in the Sun, Fe abundance measurements yield a small line-by-line
scatter (0.08 dex) with a mean abundance of 7.44 dex in good agreement with
recent publications.
