SPICES: a 1.5-m space coronagraph for spectro-polarimetric characterization of cold exoplanets

The study of the physico-chemical properties of wide-separated exoplanets (> 1 AU) is a major goal of high-contrast imaging techniques. SPICES (Spectro-Polarimetric Imaging and Characterization of Exoplanetary Systems) is a project of space coronagraph dedicated to the spectro-polarimetric analysis of gas and ice giant planets, super-Earths and circumstellar disks in visible light at a spectral resolution of about 40. After recalling the science cases of the mission, we describe the optical design and the critical subsystems of the instrument. We then discuss the SPICES performance that we derived from numerical simulations.