The LYMAN project continues the distinguished US and European tradition of the exploration of the Universe at Ultraviolet Wavelengths accessible only from space. These earlier missions, which include OAO, TD-1, ANS, Copernicus and the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE), each demonstrated the existence of new and hitherto unsuspected physical phenomena and processes, and have collectively enhanced our understanding of the evolution of stars, galaxies and the Universe.

The importance of both the UV-spectral region as a cornerstone of astronomical research, and of an observatory mode of operation is apparent when it is noted that observations from the IUE satellite are now cited more often than observations from any earth- or sky- based observatory. However, IUE is not eternal, and LYMAN is the next step forward, pushing the sensitivity limit down by a factor of more than 100, and opening up new fields and wavelengths of study. LYMAN is planned as a grazing incidence Wolter-Schwartzschild Type II telescope with an aperture of 80cm, feeding an array of sensitive far-UV and EUV spectrographs equipped with Photon Counting Array (PCA) detectors.