Simulating Exoplanet Phase Curves in Variable Star Systems with VSPEC

In the era of JWST and beyond, the characterization of exoplanet atmospheres is increasingly sensitive to biases due to stellar inhomogenities. These variations introduce signals that at best introduce false features to a spectrum, and at worst wash out the planetary flux entirely. The characterization efforts of the future will be required to plan for and handle these biases in a robust and well-tested way. For this, we created VSPEC (Variable Star PhasE Curve), a Python package to simulate observations of exoplanets in variable star systems. VSPEC wraps the Planetary Spectrum Generator's Global Emission Spectra application (PSG/GlobES) in a custom variable star model to generate combined-light spectroscopic phase curves for a variety of variability sources. We demonstrate VSPEC's ability to create realistic datasets and illustrate it's potential to inform future missions, as well as discuss the project's future. VSPEC is a well-documented open-source project that aims to support the needs of the exoplanet community.