The EPICS project: Exoplanets detection with OWL

This paper presents the status of the EPICS project, an Earth-like Planets Imaging Camera Spectrograph for OWL. We present the Top-Level-Requirements of the instrument and we describe the baseline of the Adaptive Optics system with optimized wave-front sensor. The expected performance in rejection of starlight in the near infrared and in the visible is given. The instruments concepts for detection and characterization of exo-planets will be briefly described. The Signal-to-Noise ratio estimation shows that Earth-like planets can be detected up to 20 pc in a reasonable amount of time. The extremely challenging requirements in terms of static residual errors and differential aberrations are discussed.