 It was fully commissioned by EURATOM/UKAEA and took two years to design and a further two years to construct.MAST included a neutral beam injector similar to that used on START for plasma heating, and used the same merging compression technique for plasma formation instead of the conventional direct induction.Merging compression provides a valuable saving of central solenoid flux, which can then be used to further ramp up the plasma current and/or maintain the required current flat-top.