An introduction to the World Space Observatory-Ultraviolet spectrographs

The World Space Observatory Ultraviolet (WSO-UV) is a multinational mission under the leadership of Russia with contributions of Spain and Germany. The mission is part of the Spektrum series and launch is currently scheduled for 2016. It consists of a 1.7m mirror focusing on spectrographs in the range of 102-310nm with a resolution of R >= 55,000 for high resolution spectral observations, a long-slit-spectrograph for spatially resolved observations and an imager. According to the Phase-B-Study all spectrographs will use the same detectors built by the IAAT. These spectrographs are designed to observe cosmic plasma with temperatures of several ten thousands Kelvin and atomic transition lines of all important atoms and molecules like H-2, CO, OH etc. In the core program the community wants to determine the amount of baryonic matter in the universe, extend the knowledge about the formation of galaxies and analyze the atmospheres of extrasolar planets and protoplanetary discs. To achieve these goals the IAAT designed in cooperation with the Leibniz-Institute for Analytical Sciences (ISAS Berlin) the spectrographs. In addition Tubingen develops and builds a new type of microchannel plate detector based on gallium nitride cathodes and a cross-strip-anode.