Building on the successful preliminary design phase, cosine Italia has achieved another major milestone with the Critical Design Review (CDR) of the HAMLET spectral imager. The next important step for one of the primary instruments within the Italian-led scientific contribution to ESA’s planetary defence mission to asteroid Apophis is the start of hardware manufacturing. With a highly demanding timeline ahead, the timely execution of this next phase will be crucial to ensure hardware delivery and keep the mission schedule on track.
From Design to Hardware
The milestone was achieved during the review meeting hosted at the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) in Rome, with the participation of key representatives from cosine, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Italian Space Agency (ASI), and the mission’s prime contractor, OHB.
With the design now frozen and successfully validated against the demanding requirements of a deep-space mission, the programme will now enter the manufacturing, assembly, and testing phase.
HAMLET builds on cosine’s flight heritage in spectral imagers already developed, launched, and currently on their way to the Didymos asteroid. At the same time, it represents a significant step forward in performance, notably through the addition of a Short-Wave Infrared (SWIR) channel. This new capability will support the Italian-led scientific investigation by INAF, providing substantially more information on the asteroid’s composition than has been achievable in previous missions.
With this programme, cosine Italia is establishing a strong backbone for future planetary defence and planetary science missions. More broadly, it reinforces the position of the European cosine high-tech group among the very limited number of companies able to deliver sophisticated scientific and operational instrumentation for highly challenging environments such as deep space, on ambitious schedules.
About HAMLET and the RAMSES Mission
HAMLET is an advanced hyperspectral imager based on cosine’s proven HyperScout technology. It is a vital payload for ESA’s RAMSES (Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety) mission, which will rendezvous with the asteroid 99942 Apophis.
As Apophis makes its exceptionally close flyby of Earth in April 2029, HAMLET will monitor the asteroid’s surface in the visible and near-infrared spectrums. This data will allow scientists to observe, for the first time in history, how a planetary body’s gravity physically alters an asteroid’s surface, providing critical insights for planetary defense and solar system evolution.
The development of HAMLET is led by cosine Italia with the support of INAF-IAPS and INAF-OAC, and is financed by ASI under ESA’s Space Safety Programme.
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.
