Recently, there is an increase in the use of spectro-imagers in space missions for astronomy and Earth observations. The main challenge for their exploitation is the combination of data sets from different instruments in order to produce the best possible products (images and spectra) from the observations, which are then accessible to the community.
The Innovative Common Laboratory For Space Spectroscopy (LabCom INCLASS) combines the expertises of IAS, a laboratory of the National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS) and of the University of Paris-Saclay, and ACRI-ST (https://www.acri-st.fr/fr/), an independent SME based in Sophia-Antipolis, in order to develop new methodologies for spectral-imaging data fusion applied to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and the Copernicus (EC) Sentinel-2 and -3 missions. The LabCom was created on 1 May 2021, for an initial period of four years.
The JWST, a collaboration between NASA, ESA and CSA (Canadian Space Agency), was launched on an Ariane 5 rocket on 25 December 2021. It is the largest and most powerful telescope ever launched into space, and should be operating for 5-10 years.
Copernicus is the most ambitious space-based Earth observation programme ever conceived. Within this framework, ESA is currently developing and operating the Sentinels missions, which carry different spectro-imagers with either high spatial resolution or high spectral resolution, but never both.
This LabCom is the first involving astrophysics research teams.