Open-source simulation tools for verifying NASA Pandora SmallSat's scientific performance

The upcoming NASA Pandora Mission, scheduled for launch in 2025, will obtain exoplanet transmission spectra and stellar activity information to better characterize and correct for the spectral contamination of transmission spectra by the host star. Pandora will obtain at least ten wavelength-resolved transits each of 20 unique exoplanets, each with 24 hours of stellar baseline per transit. This will provide the vital context needed to disentangle stellar contamination from exoplanet transmission spectroscopy around cool stars, and understand the impact of star spots on retrieved atmospheric properties. Pandora will be equipped with i) a visible detector, providing time-series photometry at 550nm, and ii) a near-infrared detector, providing R=30 spectra from 0.9 to 1.6 microns with at least 150ppm precision at J=9. We have developed an open-source simulator of Pandora data to assist in the development of a) the Pandora concept of operations b) the Pandora Science Pipeline and c) science analysis software to retrieve transmission spectra from Pandora data. In particular, we describe how we use the scipy.sparse Python submodule to create memory efficient simulations. This software is both fast and efficient, to enable various operating scenarios to be simulated. Our simulator tool (v.1.0) is available as open-source software, and much of the infrastructure can be generalized to other missions with similar specifications or detectors to Pandora.