The story
In 1981, Christa Fuchs took over Otto Hydraulik Bremen GmbH. Founded in 1958, the Hemelingen-based company had five employees at the time and was engaged in the construction and repair of electrical and hydraulic ship systems for the German Federal Armed Forces. Together with MBB-ERNO as project leader and the Sarstedt shipyard, OHB won the contract for the construction of the MPOSS (Multi-Purpose Oil Skimming System) lead ship in 1984. Manfred Fuchs, then director of space flight at MBB-ERNO, had the idea of entering the space industry with OHB as well. In 1985, he therefore moved to his wife's company. Among the first space contracts was the Mikroba project (microgravity with balloon), a project sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the DFVLR (now the German Aerospace Center), which involved experiments in free fall. Furthermore, OHB developed a space-qualified centrifuge for the Spacelab space laboratory for testing blood and urine samples.
As the number of employees grew, the premises at Hemelinger Hafendamm became too small. OHB built a new headquarters near the University of Bremen, which was opened in October 1988. Manfred Fuchs' vision was to develop smaller and thus less expensive satellites; this was also one reason for renaming the company Orbital- und Hydrotechnologie Bremen-System GmbH in 1991. Together with the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) at the University of Bremen, OHB developed BremSat, one of the first German small satellites. It was launched into space on board the Discovery on February 3, 1994. A further milestone was the SAFIR (Satellite for Information Relay) satellite series for position determination and object tracking, which also marked OHB's entry into the telecommunications market. As early as 1993, OHB Teledata GmbH was established for this purpose, specializing in telematics systems. In the same year, OHB built the COLUMBUS integration hall on its premises for the construction and integration of the satellites. With the acquisition of further major projects such as ABRIXAS and the growing number of employees, the company's headquarters soon became too small. Directly adjacent to the existing buildings, the new headquarters at Universitätsallee 29 were inaugurated in 1995. In 2001, a further building was constructed in what was then Karl-Ferdinand-Braun-Straße (now Manfred-Fuchs-Platz) together with a modern clean room hall.
OHB subsequently took the lead in the development of the major SAR-Lupe project, a satellite reconnaissance system on behalf of the Bundeswehr. In addition, the company was selected as a supplier for the International Space Station (ISS) and for the European Columbus station module. Meanwhile, OHB System AG and OHB Teledata AG, which had been listed on the stock exchange since the previous year, were merged to form OHB Technology AG in 2002. Over the next few years, further acquisitions and the establishment of various subsidiaries followed. Among other things, OHB acquired the MAN subsidiary MAN Technologie AG (now MT Aerospace) in 2005. In 2008, an attempt to acquire the three German Airbus plants in Nordenham, Varel and Augsburg failed. According to a report in Manager Magazin, the plan was to create a new listed aviation Group. Under the leadership of OHB, a company with 6,700 employees and sales of around one billion euros was to be created. In 2009, OHB acquired the Italian aerospace company Carlo Gavazzi Space (founded in 1981, now OHB Italia).
In January 2010, the company was awarded a contract for the construction of 14 satellites for the Galileo navigation system. The contract was worth EUR 566 million. A year later, Berry Smutny, the CEO of OHB-System AG, was dismissed after WikiLeaks published details of a conversation Smutny had with American embassy officials. Smutny reportedly called Galileo a "stupid idea" that wasted European taxpayers' money. Later in the year, the company acquired Thales Alenia Space Antwerp, which has since operated as Antwerp Space. At the beginning of 2011, the previous five business segments were combined to form the two segments Space Systems and Aerospace + Industrial Products. In May of this year, the annual general meeting resolved to rename OHB Technology AG into OHB AG. In addition, OHB acquired the "Space Systems Division" of Swedish Space Corporation in the same year, which was renamed OHB Sweden in the process.
In addition, the company developed the modular SmallGEO satellite platform, which serves as the basis for further major projects such as the H36W-1 communications satellite of the Spanish operator Hispasat and the third generation of Meteosat weather satellites. In 2013, the company was awarded a prime contract to develop and deliver a successor to the SAR-Lupe satellite reconnaissance system.
At the beginning of September 2014, the two largest subsidiaries, Bremen-based OHB System AG and Munich-based Kayser-Threde GmbH, merged to form OHB System AG with facilities in Bremen and Munich. This was followed in December 2015 by the relocation of the Munich site to a new building in Oberpfaffenhofen. OHB has been registered as a European Company (Societas Europaea) in the commercial register since March 2015.
With its investment in Rocket Factory Augsburg AG, the company has been participating in the development of a small launch vehicle (microlauncher) since 2018.
In 2020, the restructuring of the business segments was announced. All service activities arising from space technologies and data have since been combined in the third segment DIGITAL.
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In 2023 OHB was taking the US financial investing company Kohlberg Kravis Roberts on board and withdrawed from the stock exchange. The Fuchs family still holds almost 70 percent of the shares, didn't sell any shares and will therefore remain the majority owner.
From Wikipedia’s article on OHB SE, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5