MSSTA
The Multi-spectral solar telescope array, or MSSTA, was a
CCD
in order to achieve the highest possible spatial resolution and to avoid the electronics difficulty presented by the large number of detectors that would have been required for its many telescopes.
MSSTA and its sister rocket,
EUV 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),[2] and once in 2002 (flight 36.194).[3] While Dr. 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[4]
. The MSSTA I flown in 1991 carried 14 telescopes; the MSSTA II flown in 1994 carried 19 telescopes; and the MSSTA III flown in 2002 carried 11 telescopes.
Several Stanford Ph.D. degrees in Physics resulted from the MSSTA program. These include those earned by Dr. Joakim Lindblom, Dr. Maxwell J. Allen, Dr. Ray H. O'Neal, Dr. Craig E. DeForest, Dr. Charles C. Kankelborg, Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi, Dr. Dennis S. Martinez-Galarce, and Dr. Paul F.X. Boerner.
References
- S2CID 121924074.
- ^
Walker, A.B.C. (1995). Hoover, Richard B.; Walker, Jr., Arthur B. C. (eds.). "The Multi-Spectral Solar Telescope Array VIII: The Second Flight". S2CID 120149978.
- ^
Boerner, P.; Martinez-Galarce, D. S.; Bay, T. J.; Barbee, T. W.; Talasaz, A. A.; Kumar, R.; Jain, P.; Hakim, N. (2002). "Results from the MSSTA III". Bibcode:2002AAS...201.8305B.
- ^
Walker, A.B.C.; Lindblom, J. F.; Barbee, T. W.; Hoover, R. B. (1988). "Soft X-ray Images of the Solar Corona with a Normal-Incidence Cassegrain Multilayer Telescope". S2CID 27681267.