OHB

OHB SE is a German space technology and defence group headquartered in Bremen, listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and majority-owned by the Fuchs family. With approximately 3,000 employees and annual revenues around EUR 1 billion, OHB is Germany's largest independent space company, operating across small and medium satellite manufacturing, navigation systems, and Science payloads. OHB's primary programmes include satellites for the Galileo navigation constellation, Copernicus Earth observation missions, and national German defence satellites under the SATCOMBw programme.

OHB's connection to the drone and autonomous systems sector is through a strategic joint venture with Helsing, the Munich-based AI defence company that closed a $1.2 billion funding round at an $18 billion valuation in May 2026 and won part of the German Bundeswehr's EUR 840 million loitering-munition award. The OHB-Helsing joint venture combines OHB's space and sensor heritage with Helsing's AI software stack, targeting the intersection of space-based intelligence and autonomous systems — an architecture relevant to the Golden Dome interceptor and NATO's evolving space-sensor-to-shooter doctrine.

OHB's strategic significance in the autonomous systems context is its position as Germany's anchor space industrial partner: it provides the satellite manufacturing and integration capability that defence AI companies like Helsing need to close the sensor-to-shooter loop from orbit. As the Golden Dome programme in the US and NATO's equivalent discussions in Europe accelerate, space-based sensor infrastructure is moving from a strategic background capability to an operational requirement — making OHB's partnership with Helsing more operationally significant than its satellite order book alone suggests.