The , or '''MSSTA''', was a Sounding Rocket payload built by Professor A.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 . MSSTA contained 14 individual telescopes, all trained on the Sun and all sensitive to slightly different Wavelength s of ultraviolet light. Like all sounding rockets, MSSTA flew for approximately 14 minutes per mission, about 5 minutes of which were in space -- just enough time to test a new technology or yield "first results" science. MSSTA is one of the last solar observing instruments to use Photographic Film rather than a Digital Camera system such as a CCD .
MSSTA and its sister rocket, NIXT , were prototypes for normal incidence EUV imaging telescopes that are in use today, such as the 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), and once in 2002.
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