About OHB
At first, some general information about OHB SE, the main group where the OHB Systems AG belongs to:
OHB SE is Germany's first listed technology and aerospace group with approx 2,000 employees stationed in Europe. They work in two specified system branches:
- Space Systems
- Aerospace + Industrial Products
​
Space Systems deals with the design and development as well as implementation of space products. Aerospace + Industrial Products works in the product manufacturing for aerospace and telematics.
​
The OHB Systems AG we visited belongs to the Space Systems branche.
There are 4 different production halls:
​
- the Galileo hall
- the SAR-Lupe hall
- the Columbus hall
- the Electronics-/EQ-hall
They are all named after the products, especially the satellites produced in it.
Bremen is the biggest location of OHB Systems AG, but there is another smaller location in Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich.
History and basic information
The company OHB was formed in 1981 when the couple Christa Fuchs and Manfred Fuchs took over the leadership over the company. However, the company started way back in 1958 as a marine system outfitter. OHB is today the third largest space company in Europe with more than 2000 employees working in different parts of Europe. OHB is a family led company with the Fuchs-family maintaining control of the CEO position and the board. One of the founders; Manfred Fuchs was the former CEO of the company but after his death in April 2014 his son Marco R. Fuchs is the CEO. Christina Fuchs, one of the founders of the company, is currently head of the board. The Fuchs family is today owning 51 % of all the company shares.
​
On September the 1st in 2014, OHB system AG merged with Kayser-Threde GmbH (another space company from Munich) forming the new OHB system AG. The merge with Kayser-Threde gave OHB two strong sites in Germany, one in Bremen and one in Munich.
OHB SE which is the name of the European company is today working in two different areas, the Space Systems part and the Aerospace + Industrial Products part. The Space System part consists of five daughter-companies, all five being 100% controlled by OHB SE. One of the daughter-companies is OHB System AG. The Space System part of the company is working with building Satellites and manned space travel while the Aerospace + Industrial Products part is working with building air and space-crafts. The aerospace + industrial part of the company also consists of five daughter-companies, however OHB SE does not control these five companies to 100 %.
​
The new OHB System AG is working with seven different types of space work. They work with: Human Spaceflight, Telecommunications, Technology, Exploration/ Science, Navigation, Security and Earth Observation. In the human spaceflight they are working with sending astronauts to the International Space Station and providing them with food and other supplies. The telecommunication is proving radio and television. The Exploration/ Science work includes exploring other planets. The navigation part is about securing a working navigation system. The Earth Observation works in the fields of meteorology and the study of the Earth system.
Bremen is the biggest location of OHB System AG, but there is another smaller location in Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich.
Projects
OHB System SE is currently working on a lot of projects, but during our visit at the company we mainly focused on: Galileo, SmallGEO, SAR-Lupe and SARah.
​
Galileo: Galileo is a navigational satellite project which OHB is mostly working on today. They were contracted by the EU-commision and ESA on building 22 satellites of this kind. The main purposes of this satellite is for Europe to be independent from the navigational satellites from Russia and the U.S.A. They will act the same as GPS, but will be more accurate in the nothern parts of Europe.
SmallGEO: SmallGEO is, just like Galileo, an ESA project. SmallGEO is a versatile satellite platform mainly used for communication, data and video transmission.
SAR-Lupe: SAR-Lupe is radar project from the German Ministry of Defence. The satellites are used for reconnaissance.
SARah: SARah is the successor of the SAR-Lupe satellite program. The German Ministry of defence wanted to have a new range of modern radar satellites.
Satellite SmallGEO
There are 4 different production halls:
​
- the Galileo hall
- the SAR-Lupe hall
- the Columbus hall
- the Electronics-/EQ-hall
They are all named after the products, especially the satellites produced in it.
Bremen is the biggest location of OHB Systems AG, but there is another smaller location in Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich.
Business
The company OHB has gotten a fairly big market value standing at 344 million euros anno 2014, but this stil isn´t as big as her competitors, Thales Alenia Space has a market value of 1,8 billion euros and EADS a value of 5 billion euros. OHB is especially active in the countries Germany, Italy, Belgium, France and Sweden.
The company itself includes multiple other smaller firms such as CGS S.p.A ; OHB Sweden AB ; Antwerp Space N.V ; OHB Teledata GmbH ; Luxspace Sarl which are fully owned by OHB and MT Aerospace AG ; MT Mechatronics ; MT aerospaec Guyane and megatel GmbH which are owned by OHB between 70% and 74,9%.
Satellite SAR-Lupe
© OHB System AG; 2017
© OHB System AG; 2017