SPASCIA
Institution
SPASCIA is a French independent, private SAS company created in March 2016. SPASCIA performs innovative scientific engineering studies, provides expertise and develops simulation and processing algorithms in the fields of Atmospheric Observation from Space. SPASCIA has 10 staff members, all of them PhDs and highly qualified, with more than 20 years of experience in the fields of space and atmospheric science and in the management of scientific projects on behalf of ESA, EUMETSAT, CNES, the EU.
Research expertise
SPASCIA scientific engineers have developed recognised in-depth expertise in instrument/system/mission algorithm development and data processing of space-borne infrared spectrometry for atmospheric sounding applications, based on long-term involvement in IASI, IASI-NG and MTG-IRS missions with CNES, EUMETSAT and ESA, as well as on other infrared interferometers (PREMIER, TRAQ, CrlS) and spectrometers (AIRS), UVNS interferometers (GOSAT) and spectrometers (Sentinel-4, Sentinel-5, CarbonSat, MicroCarb). It comprises level 0 and 1 data processing chains, simulation and assessment of instrument performance, generation of realistic databases of simulation measurements in various atmospheric conditions, radiative transfer simulation and level 2 algorithm development/validation, and exploitation of level 2 and higher-level products for science and environmental application purposes.
SPASCIA developed strong collaborations and partnerships with research groups in Europe in the fields of Earth observations and atmospheric sciences. They build in particular with French groups involved in the exploitation of space data via the AERIS French data centre and with European groups involved in the development and use of the thermal infrared sounding systems and short wave infrared sounding systems.
Role in PHIDIAS
Three pilots are investigated in PHIDIAS in three thematic work packages (WP), representative of the needs of the scientific community of the Earth system (and other public users and downstream sector). SPASCIA leads the WP4: Intelligent screening of satellite data for monitoring of extreme atmospheric composition events. It addresses a key requirement from the users' communities: providing the capacity of intelligent screening of large amounts of satellite data for targeting scenes of interest (e.g. extreme atmospheric events: high pollution, wildfires, volcanoes, industrial accidents) in view of their dedicated processing or exploitation. The main users are the scientific community (for efficient analyses of the data), the operational services at European levels (for the monitoring of their forecast systems), and the service providers developing space-based applications for end-users (e.g. alert or decision support services).
