Last week, cosine hosted the mechanical design department of SRON (the Space Research Organisation Netherlands) at its headquarters in Sassenheim, The Netherlands. The visit brought around twelve engineers to cosine to exchange knowledge, explore facilities, and strengthen collaboration on ESA’s NewAthena X-ray space telescope.
The afternoon began with presentations by SRON on the X-IFU (X-ray Integral Field Unit), the advanced detector SRON is developing for NewAthena. cosine then highlighted its own contributions to the mission, including the production of Silicon Pore Optics (SPO) modules that will form NewAthena’s powerful X-ray lens, as well as the activities of its High Energy Optics engineering team.
Following the presentations, the SRON team toured cosine’s facilities, including its environmental testing capacities, such as the shaker and shock table. As such type of special facilities are often in high demand elsewhere in the Netherlands, the visit sparked discussions about how SRON and cosine can share infrastructure and support each other’s work more efficiently.
The long lasting collaboration between SRON and cosine started more than 25 years ago, successfully working since then together on remote sensing and high-energy missions. “We are both working on the NewAthena mission, but on different aspects of the space telescope,” commented Dr. David Girou of cosine. “By sharing facilities and expertise, both sides can move faster.”
SPO for NewAthena
The Silicon Pore Optics technology is a key European innovation, designed to give NewAthena a large collecting area while remaining lightweight. These optics will enable the telescope to capture extremely faint X-ray signals from black holes, galaxy clusters, and other energetic cosmic phenomena. Together, SRON’s detector technology and cosine’s optics development form two of the core pillars of the mission.
Read more information about ESA’s NewAthena mission on their website.
About cosine
cosine is a leading worldwide company in the development of space instrumentation, such as Silicon Pore Optics for astronomy and remote sensing solutions with onboard analytics for Earth Observation and planetary science. cosine combines physics and technology to bring out-of-the-box solutions to its clients. cosine has been developing and delivering innovative measurement systems for space and industrial applications since 1998. The company operates more than 1,000 m2 of cleanrooms and high-tech assembly facilities to build and test the systems we produce for customers at our headquarters in Sassenheim, The Netherlands and at subsidiaries in Berlin, Germany and Benevento, Italy.
About SRON
The Space Research Organisation Netherlands is a leading international research institute at the forefront of space science, working to answer fundamental questions about the cosmos and Earth’s climate. As the primary space research institute in the Netherlands, SRON serves as a central hub for coordinating and carrying out groundbreaking research in astrophysics and Earth observation from space.
