MSSTA
Sounding rocket payload
title: "MSSTA" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["spacecraft-instruments", "ultraviolet-telescopes", "solar-telescopes", "sounding-rockets"] description: "Sounding rocket payload" topic_path: "science/astronomy" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSSTA" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Sounding rocket payload ::
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Black_Brant_IX_-_MSSTA.jpg" caption="Sounding rocket 36.049, carrying the MSSTA (silvery section at top), on the launch rail at [[White Sands Missile Range]], May 1991. The personnel aboard the crane have just installed an [[arming plug]] into the payload to prepare it for launch."] ::
The Multi-Spectral Solar Telescope Array (MSSTA) was a sounding rocket payload built by Arthur B. C. Walker Jr. at Stanford University in the 1990s to test EUV/XUV imaging of the Sun using normal incidence EUV-reflective multilayer optics.{{cite journal |last1=Hoover |first1=R.B. |last2=Walker |title= Solar Observations with the Multi-Spectral Solar Telescope Array |journal=Proc. SPIE |volume=1546 |page=175 |date=1991 |bibcode=1992SPIE.1546..175H |first2=A. B. C. |last3=Lindblom |first3=J. |last4=Allen |first4=M. |last5=O'Neal |first5=R. |last6=Deforest |first6=C. |last7=Barbee |first7=T. W. |editor-first1=Richard B. |editor-last1=Hoover |doi=10.1117/12.51232 |series=Multilayer and Grazing Incidence X-Ray/EUV Optics |s2cid=121924074
MSSTA and its sister rocket, NIXT, were prototypes for normal incidence extreme ultraviolet imaging telescopes that are in use today, as well as the historic EIT instrument aboard the SOHO spacecraft, and the TRACE spacecraft. MSSTA flew three times: once in 1991 (NASA Sounding Rocket flight 36.049), once in 1994 (flight 36.091), |last=Walker |first=A.B.C. |editor-first1=Richard B. |editor-first2=Arthur B. C. |editor-last1=Hoover |editor-last2=Walker, Jr. |title= The Multi-Spectral Solar Telescope Array VIII: The Second Flight |journal=Proc. SPIE |volume=2515 |date=1995 |doi=10.1117/12.212587 |pages=182 |series=X-Ray and Extreme Ultraviolet Optics |bibcode=1995SPIE.2515..182W |s2cid=120149978 |url=https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/handle/1/9666 |last1=Boerner | first1=P. |last2=Martinez-Galarce |title=Results from the MSSTA III |journal=Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society |volume=34 |page=1242 |date=2002 |bibcode=2002AAS...201.8305B |first2=D. S. |last3=Bay |first3=T. J. |last4=Barbee |first4=T. W. |last5=Talasaz |first5=A. A. |last6=Kumar |first6=R. |last7=Jain |first7=P. |last8=Hakim |first8=N. While Walker's 1991 telescope was the first in the series to carry the MSSTA moniker, the precursor to the MSSTA, the Stanford/MSFC Rocket Spectroheliograph (NASA Sounding Rocket flight 27.092), which carried two EUV telescopes in 1987, was the first mission to successfully obtain high-resolution, full-disk solar images utilizing normal incidence EUV optics. |last1=Walker |first1=A.B.C. |last2=Lindblom |journal=Science |volume=241 |doi = 10.1126/science.241.4874.1781 |title=Soft X-ray Images of the Solar Corona with a Normal-Incidence Cassegrain Multilayer Telescope |issue=4874 |pmid=17783129 |date=1988 |first2=J. F. |last3=Barbee |first3=T. W. |last4=Hoover |first4=R. B. |pages=1781–7 |bibcode = 1988Sci...241.1781W |s2cid=27681267 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1230986
Several Stanford Ph.D. degrees in Physics resulted from the MSSTA program. These include those earned by Joakim Lindblom, Maxwell J. Allen, Ray H. O'Neal, Craig Edward DeForest, Charles C. Kankelborg, Hakeem Oluseyi, Dennis S. Martinez-Galarce, and Paul F.X. Boerner.
References
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