  The World Space Observatory/Ultraviolet (WSO/UV) represents a new mission
implementation model for large space missions for astrophysics. The process has
been brought up to enable, fully scientific needs driven, a logic to be applied
to the demands for large collection powers required to undertake space missions
which are complementary to the continuously increasing sensitivity of
ground-based telescopes. One of the assumptions associated with the idea of a
WSO is to avoid the excessive complexity required for multipurpose missions.
Although there may exist purely technological or programmatic policy issues,
which would suggest such more complex missions to be more attractive, many
other aspects, which do not need to be explored in this report, may argue
against such a mission model. Following this precept and other reasons, the
first implementation model for a WSO has been done for the ultraviolet domain
WSO/UV. WSO/UV is a follow-up project of the UN/ESA Workshops on Basic Space
Science, organised annually since 1991.
