The first experimental investigation of a normal-incidence Mo-Y multilayer-coated diffraction grating operating at a 9-nm wavelength is reported. The substrate is a replica of a concave holographic ion-etched blazed grating with 2,400 grooves/mm and a 2-m radius of curvature. The measured peak efficiency in the -3 order is 2.7% at a wavelength of 8.79 nm. To our knowledge, this is the highest normal-incidence grating efficiency ever obtained in this wavelength region.