MST is larger than any previous RFP device, and thus it can test this important size issue. The major radius of the torus is 1.5 meters, and the minor radius is 52 centimeters. The outside diameter of the vacuum vessel is about fourteen feet. The volume of plasma is about eight cubic meters, approximately eight times greater than previous RFP devices. Despite its large size, MST was constructed to very high precision to reduce magnetic field errors.
Most dimensions are accurate to a few hundredths of an inch.
In this country, RFP research was pioneered by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, but they no longer work in this area. There are RFP devices in Italy, Japan, and Sweden. The MST device was designed by a scientific team consisting of University of Wisconsin -Madison Physics Professors Richard Dexter, Stewart Prager and Clint Sprott. Dexter was the Project Manager, responsible for the construction of the facility. The construction was coordinated by PSL .