With the share sale, OHB is changing course. Before the deal, only about 5% of OHB shares were available on the public market, but with the sale that will increase to nearly 20%. The Fuchs family will retain its controlling 60% stake in the company and KKR will own the remaining 20%.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are delighted to make OHB accessible to a broader group of investors again who share our conviction in the future of the European space industry,\u201d Marco Fuchs said in a statement about the share sale.<\/p>\n
In the last three years, European governments have increased spending on civil and defense space, creating new opportunities for OHB. The company says it is at the start of a \u201csuper-cycle\u201d of increased spending by national governments as well as the European Commission and European Space Agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see ourselves as a European space champion,\u201d Fuchs said in a presentation at the company\u2019s Capital Markets Update event on May 18, calling OHB Europe\u2019s largest pure-play space company.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis capital increase opens pathways for us to execute on our strategic goals: We want to accelerate industrialization, invest in launch vehicles and explore attractive M&A opportunities,\u201d he said in the statement about the share sale.<\/p>\n
The company disclosed some of those plans at the May event. \u201cAs our markets are at an inflection point, we want to grow and accelerate this growth,\u201d said Tim Teckenburg, chief financial officer of OHB.<\/p>\n
One focus will be investment in new and expanded production facilities. OHB also is looking to invest in emerging capabilities, such as lunar exploration and its partnership with Dassault on its VORTEX spaceplane project. He said OHB is interested in \u201cselective M&A\u201d opportunities in Europe but did not provide more details about the types of companies it is considering. The fourth area would be financial support to Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), the launch startup in which OHB owns a 65% stake.<\/p>\n
The slide from Teckenburg\u2019s presentation estimated the combined investment in those four areas would be between 500 million and 600 million euros but did not specify how much would be spent in each area.<\/p>\n
![\"RFA](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/rfaoneandtwo.jpeg\")
Rocket Factory Augsburg has plans to make its RFA ONE rocket partially reusable, with long-term ambitions for a larger reusable RFA TWO rocket. Credit: OHB<\/p>\n
RFA update<\/p>\n
The Capital Markets Update included an update on the progress by RFA and its RFA ONE small launch vehicle.<\/p>\n
The company is nearing the first orbital launch attempt for the vehicle from SaxaVord Spaceport in the Shetland Islands. \u201cThe rocket is already in SaxaVord. We\u2019re just doing the last, final preparations for the inaugural launch,\u201d said Stefan Brieschenk, chief operating officer of RFA, at the event.<\/p>\n
He did not give a target launch date other than sometime this year. Fuchs, speaking at an OHB earnings call May 7, said he was expecting a launch \u201clater this summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
That rocket is what RFA calls \u201cBlock 1\u201d of the vehicle, designed to be expendable and carry up to half a ton to low Earth orbit. The company has plans for an upgraded Block 2 version with an increased payload capacity of up to 1.5 tons and the ability to recover and reuse the first stage.<\/p>\n
The Block 2 will use an upgraded version of its Helix engine with double the thrust but only a small increase in mass. \u201cThis is the big stepping-stone that we need\u201d for making the first stage reusable, Brieschenk said.<\/p>\n
He said RFA is planning a single launch this year of the RFA ONE Block 1, with two launches of that vehicle planned by 2027. The company proposes to start flying the Block 2 in 2028. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely difficult to develop a reusable first stage, which is why a few attempts at recovery will be required,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
RFA plans to scale up production of the Block 2 vehicle after 2028, with a goal of 25 launches a year at an unspecified \u201cmidterm\u201d date after 2029. That flight rate would meet anticipated demand from the German military as it scales up space spending and plans satellite constellations.<\/p>\n
The company has growth plans beyond the RFA ONE Block 2. In his presentation, he showed the design of an RFA TWO rocket, superficially similar to SpaceX\u2019s Starship, with reusable first and second stages. That vehicle would be able to place 15 tons into orbit with both stages reused, increasing to 35 tons if the stages are expended. It would be powered by an upgraded Helix X engine with 100 tons of thrust, 10 times that of the current Helix 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cEurope needs to have a large rocket, a heavy-lift rocket, for the future,\u201d Brieschenk said. \u201cWe have all the stepping stones in OHB to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
He did not disclose a timeline for developing the RFA TWO other than \u201cbeyond mid-term\u201d on the slide showing the vehicle.<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 German space company OHB will raise about half a billion euros through a stock sale to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,238292,362138,245225,128,7410,285],"class_list":["post-756932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ohb","tag-rfa-one","tag-rocket-factory-augsburg","tag-science","tag-sn","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}