Sometime in the coming weeks, if all goes to plan, the first orbital rocket to lift off from British soil will be German. Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) appears primed to deliver a historic first that the United Kingdom has pursued for almost a decade, following government-backed efforts involving Lockheed Martin, Virgin Orbit, and Orbex that all ultimately failed.

In addition to losing another contender for that historic first, Orbex commencing insolvency proceedings on 18 February also left the UK without a champion in ESA’s European Launcher Challenge. The company had been the obvious recipient of the lion’s share of the €144 million the UK committed to the programme at ESA’s Ministerial Council in Bremen last November (CM25). The question now is what the country intends to do.

Questions put to representatives from the UK Space Agency, the now-abolished Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and the European Space Agency have produced little clarity on the reallocation of funding initially committed to Orbex or the portion that remains unassigned.

What the UK has already distributed

At CM25, the UK’s €144 million ELC commitment was the smallest subscription of any country with a company participating in the programme, with the next-smallest commitment being Spain’s, at €169 million. During that November meeting of Europe’s space decision-makers, the UK committed €10 million to Orbex for Component A and €11.70 million for Component B. It also provided €10 million to RFA for Component B.

Funds committed to Component A are used to subsidize launch services for ESA and other European institutional customers. Funding for Component B will be used to support companies upgrading the performance of their respective launch vehicles.

The remaining €112.3 million of the UK’s ELC commitment was parked in a “to be distributed” element. In early December 2025, a UK Space Agency spokesperson explained that it was “working with multiple partners” and that “allocations to specific operators will be set out in due course.”

In March 2026, Toni Tolker-Nielsen, then-ESA director of space transportation, explained during a briefing following an ESA Council meeting that the UK had allocated a small part of the remaining €112.3 million pot, transferring another €8.4 million to RFA for Component B. The briefing came a month after Orbex formally entered insolvency proceedings.

Asked about the rest, a DSIT spokesperson said: “No decisions have been taken on the remaining funds in ELC TBD or ELC Orbex. We are taking a phased approach to deploying the UK’s ELC funding, ensuring it is targeted at projects that best support assured access to space, deliver value for money, and maximise UK economic benefit.”

The result is that eight months after the UK pledged €144 million to the ELC and five months after Orbex collapsed, just €18.4 million has been allocated to companies still eligible to use the funding.

The UK is unique in this predicament. Of the €902.16 million committed to the European Launcher Challenge at CM25, just €5.5 million, excluding the UK’s contribution, was left undistributed. That figure rises slightly once Denmark’s €8 million, originally assigned to Orbex, is added back into the total, but the UK remains the clear outlier.

Project Puffin and what the government knew

In July 2025, the UK Space Agency awarded PricewaterhouseCoopers a £162,000 contract to perform financial due diligence on Orbex. According to a breakdown of the work completed, PwC assessed the company’s current financial health, including its long-term viability, expenditure, and investment plans. It also examined the risks to successfully completing development of the launch vehicle and service, demonstrating them, and reaching commercialisation. The due diligence was completed in October 2025 under the name Project Puffin Financial Due Diligence.

Although public disclosures confirm that a Project Puffin report was delivered, it has not been published. However, Orbex administrators’ filings, which became public this month, give us a glimpse of what the report likely outlined.

Of the £138.5 million Orbex had secured in grant and equity funding since its founding in 2015, £76.7 million came from public sources, including £26 million from the UK government and £29 million from the Scottish National Investment Bank. According to filings submitted by the administrators in July, Orbex had just £689,000 in cash when it entered administration. Although its assets were valued at £41.3 million on paper, they were expected to raise little more than £10.3 million, including £7.7 million owed by Sutherland Spaceport Ltd. Orbex also owed £56.8 million to suppliers and other unsecured creditors, who appear unlikely to recover much of what they are owed. Separate filings from April show that Orbex recorded a £25.1 million loss in 2025, suggesting that it was burning through roughly £2 million a month.

The list of unsecured creditors offered an almost farcical picture of the collapse. Orbex owed £374 to a pizza restaurant, £480 to a café and £381 to a locksmith, alongside much larger debts to Spanish aerospace group CITD Engineering & Technologies and Deimos Space UK. After accounting for money owed to creditors and capital invested by shareholders, Orbex’s estimated overall shortfall stood at £106.4 million.

The government had therefore received, before CM25, a report that presumably outlined Orbex’s dire financial position in more detail than the administrators’ filings. Why, then, did it earmark €21.7 million for a company that was likely to fail? And if the government knew the extent of those difficulties, why commit any funding to the challenge at all?

Despite all of this, somewhere in the government’s ELC ledger, a €21.7 million line item marked “Orbex” persists five months after the company entered administration, with no decision on its fate.

The deferral chain

While previous comments may have suggested one, there appears to be no stated deadline for the UK government to allocate or reassign the funding that remains uncommitted.

“I checked with the European Launcher Challenge team, and as far as the programme is concerned, there is no imposed deadline,” an ESA spokesperson said in response to a question about the deadline for decisions on both the Orbex pot and the TBD funds. “They suggest you ask the UK Space Agency for any further information.” This statement appears to conflict with one made earlier this year.

In January, Tolker-Nielsen said the UK needed to decide on its allocations within two to three months to enable contracts to be placed.

“We are going into this second stage [of] tendering, and the big amount of the UK subscription is in the to be allocated box, and we cannot place contracts before they move it to a programme. So that’s the deadline. There’s no contracts without [the] UK taking a decision to allocate this money to a specific project, and that should happen in the coming two to three months.”

That window has closed. ESA planned to open the second-stage tendering process in February, with contracts expected to be signed later this year. Each challenger must complete a successful orbital launch by the end of 2027 to confirm its place in the programme.

During a briefing in June, ESA’s head of strategy and institutional launches, Lucía Linares, said that the UK had the flexibility to decide what to do with both its Orbex and TBD funds.

“There is flexibility for Member States participating in both the To Be Distributed column and the Orbex line to either move those funds to another challenger or to another programme of the European Space Agency or take those funds back home,” Linares said.

When asked, the UK Space Agency spokesperson tied the agency’s decision to the country’s much-touted forthcoming Space Strategy.

“We will provide updates on decision-making timescales through our ongoing engagement with industry in due course,” the spokesperson said. “The UK’s overall approach to assured access will be set out in the forthcoming Space Strategy, which will be published later this year, and will inform future allocation decisions.”

The publication of that document, at least, is said to be imminent. Speaking at the Spacetide conference in Tokyo this month, UK Space Agency director Rebecca Evernden, who took over in April when the agency was folded into DSIT, said the whole-of-government space strategy would be released “in the coming weeks.” She explained that it would be framed around two outcomes: economic growth and national security, with launch among its four focus areas. While Evernden suggested that publication was only weeks away, the agency’s written response was notably less specific, saying only that the strategy would appear “later this year.”

A new Prime Minister

Any eventual publication of the Space Strategy on which every ELC allocation decision now appears to depend will take place under different political and departmental leadership from that which oversaw its creation.

Keir Starmer announced his resignation as Prime Minister on 22 June. Andy Burnham officially took office on 20 July, becoming the UK’s seventh prime minister in a decade. The day after being sworn in, Burnham’s government confirmed that the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the department that oversees the UK Space Agency and the still-undecided allocation of €125.6 million in ELC funding, would be abolished.

“This move recognises that technology and innovation are not separate sectors of our economy. They are the foundation of all future industry, culture, and public service delivery,” Baroness Smith of Basildon said in a statement made on behalf of Prime Minister Andy Burnham explaining the restructuring.

Much of DSIT’s responsibilities are being transferred to an expanded Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Baroness Smith did not, however, make any mention of the government’s space policy or where that responsibility had landed in the restructured British government.

The demise of DSIT comes less than four months after the UK Space Agency ceased to be an independent body and was officially folded into the department on 1 April 2026. The Starmer government announced the change on 20 August 2025, arguing that bringing the agency together with DSIT’s Space Directorate would reduce duplication, cut bureaucracy and place policy and programme delivery under clearer ministerial oversight. The department overseeing that organisation is now being dismantled before the new structure has completed its first four months.

While the reshuffle has removed DSIT’s secretary of state, the minister responsible for the space portfolio, Liz Lloyd, has remained a part of the new government. That continuity is, however, limited as Lloyd only assumed responsibility for the country’s space programme in September 2025.

The restructuring does not necessarily herald a wholesale departure from the UK’s ELC commitment, the still-undecided allocation of €125.6 million, or the upcoming space policy. However, the combination of a new prime minister, the departure of DSIT’s two most senior ministers, the abolition of the department and uncertainty over the UK Space Agency’s administrative position adds another layer of uncertainty over every element of the country’s space programme.

Where this leaves things

Leadership matters. Continuity of purpose matters even more. Seven prime ministers in little more than a decade represents a catastrophic failure of British governance. That political instability would be less damaging if successive governments were at least guided by a consistent national objective, a North Star by which each could chart its own course. Instead, British space policy appears to be following the shifting glints of a spinning disco ball chased by a rabid squirrel rather than a fixed point in the sky.

ESA’s Rosalind Franklin mission is scheduled to be launched on its journey to Mars in 2028, marking the beginning of the rover’s long-delayed trip to the Red Planet. The mission’s rover, tasked with searching for ancient life, will be equipped with a Radioisotope Heater Unit (RHU) supplied by NASA. These devices use heat from the natural decay of radioactive material to keep spacecraft systems warm in cold environments. For the Rosalind Franklin mission, the RHU will provide heat to the rover’s critical systems throughout its operations on the planet’s surface.

While only one of NASA’s contributions to the mission, the RHU is particularly noteworthy because Europe does not currently produce its own version of this radioactive hot water bottle. ESA is, however, in the process of changing that reality.

In a fitting symbol of Europe’s shift from relying on the great space powers to developing its own sovereign capabilities, NASA’s RHU will keep the Rosalind Franklin …

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The mission is over. Three Americans and one Canadian flew to the Moon and back for the first time in over half a century. As the dust settles, Europe’s place in this moment is unlikely to ever amount to much more than a footnote. Is this a strategic failure by the European Space Agency, the cruel reality of partnership, or just bad luck?

Following the splashdown of the Artemis 2 mission, several European companies and institutions that helped make the mission possible shared triumphant mission-accomplished messages on social media and in press releases. Mission Commander Reid Wiseman even thanked the “ESA Airbus team” and “our friends in the Netherlands and Germany” during the final phase of the crew’s journey. Yet the headlines and discussion that followed told a clear story. Outside of Europe, the continent’s involvement in the most significant human spaceflight in decades barely registered.

While there are many reasons for this, a significant contributor could be t…

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ICEYE is a Finnish Earth Observation data provider and satellite manufacturer scaling to meet growing demand for sovereign intelligence from space, as defence customers increasingly turn to commercial providers.

The company, which reported over €250 million in revenue in 2025, with a €1.5 billion backlog, is expanding both its own constellation of satellites and its delivery of customer-owned satellite systems. Its latest Generation 4 satellites promise significant improvements in imaging capability, while major contracts, including a nearly €1.7 billion agreement with the German Armed Forces, highlight its growing influence.

In an interview with European Spaceflight, Damon Olloman, Vice President of Missions for the UK and Canada at ICEYE, discussed the company’s recent funding round, its next-generation satellites, efforts to ramp up production to meet demand, and the growing role of commercial providers in defence and intelligence.

ICEYE is currently moving forward with the deployment of its Gen 4 satellites. How significant an improvement are these over Gen 3? And how many Gen 4 satellites are you expecting to launch in 2026?

ICEYE’s Generation 4 (Gen4) satellites represent a significant leap in our SAR technology. It doubles both the size of the SAR antenna and the radiated power, which enhances image quality and coverage area. Specifically, the Gen4 satellite offers the world’s highest-fidelity commercial SAR imagery with up to 16 cm resolution and increases the high-resolution imaging area by 250%, from a 150 km to a 400 km swath width. This allows a single satellite to cover vast areas in a single pass. Each Gen4 satellite can capture up to 500 images daily and enables near real-time monitoring by allowing imaging and data downlink to occur simultaneously.

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In a 30 January release, the European Space Agency announced that it had appointed Laurent Jaffart as the head of the agency’s newly formed Resilience, Navigation, and Connectivity Directorate. The agency explained that the new directorate will be tasked with “bolstering resilience and enhancing navigation and connectivity in line with the security and defence priorities of its Member States, the European Union, and defence-related agencies in Europe.” At first glance, this appears to run counter to Article II of the agency’s founding Convention.

Article II states that “the purpose of the Agency shall be to provide for and to promote, for exclusively peaceful purposes, cooperation among European States in space research and technology and their space applications, with a view to their being used for scientific purposes and for operational space applications.” The importance of the agency’s activities being “exclusively peaceful” was also underscored by the Convention’s autho…

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The interview is largely exclusive to paid subscribers, though I’ve included two particularly interesting questions for free subscribers. The next free edition of the newsletter will be published next week.

You have now been in the role for around nine months. What were your first impressions of the Rocket Factory Augsburg team and what they had already achieved? Have you identified any areas of the business that require change or improvement?

The RFA team is young, international, and motivated. We are on the right track. Nonetheless, continuous changes and improvements are necessary both now and in the future. Currently, the focus is on the development, production, and testing of the Helix engines and the launch vehicle, as well as all tasks related to the launch site and the first test flight. In parallel, we are working on the proposals for various launch service missions. From the second launch onwards, we need to shift our focus to the launch services and the planned technical upgrades of the RFA ONE launch vehicle, as proposed in the European Launcher Challenge (ELC).

RFA is currently working towards the inaugural flight of your RFA ONE rocket. Can you provide an update on the status of the new first stage currently under construction? How far along is it? When do you expect it to be completed? And what is the next major milestone the team is working towards?

The first stage is now being transported from Augsburg to the launch site, and we plan to ship the second stage to SaxaVord within the next few weeks, too. The engine acceptance tests are still ongoing in Kiruna, Sweden. The RFA team is now working on the next important milestones – commissioning the launch pad, completing vehicle integration at the launch site, and hot fire testing of the first stage.

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As a side note, the first exclusive interview of the year for my paid subscribers will be published on Monday, 9 February. The interview is with Rocket Factory Augsburg’s relatively new CEO, Indulis Kalnins.

Before diving in, a brief recap of Part 1 would probably be useful.

In January 2025, the UK government appeared fully committed to Orbex, backing the company with a £20 million investment and publicly framing it as the centrepiece of a sovereign British launch capability. Ministers and agency leadership spoke confidently about British rockets, British sa…

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In addition to our main story this week, I do also have a small update to the Orbex story from last week. My Freedom of Information request is still pending, so it’s not the full part two just yet. The UK government has, however, published new guidance on its approach to launch going forward. So, I will be publishing a Why Did the UK Abandon Orbex? Part 1.5 on Friday.

In December 2025, with little fanfare, ArianeGroup quietly became the sole owner of Ariane 6 launch operator Arianespace through the recapitalisation of a company burdened by years of losses and negative equity. Under its new ownership structure, the company has received a €200 million injection as it looks to rapidly ramp up the launch c…

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In January 2025, the UK government appeared to be fully behind Orbex, with Technology Secretary Peter Kyle touting the company’s future by channeling his inner Jim Bridenstine, saying it would launch “British rockets carrying British satellites from British soil.” In November 2025, during the European Space Agency’s Ministerial Council meeting (CM25), the UK government appeared to falter in its support for Orbex, choosing not to immediately put its full funding weight behind the company. Two months later, the company announced that it was preparing to s…

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Subscribers - 5,577. Thank you all for sticking with me.

“Mars Sample Return is currently not planned to be continued. It’s a fact.” This was a clear and unambiguous statement of fact made by Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA’s Director of Human and Robotic Exploration, during a press conference at the agency’s headquarters in Paris on 8 January. With this being the seemingly certain end of the NASA-led MSR mission, what happens to ESA’s primary contribution to the ambitious initiative, the Earth Return Orbiter?

The False Start

In 2007, the International Mars Architecture for the Return of Samples (iMARS) task force was established within the International Mars Exploration Working Group (IMEWG), which was formed in 1993 to provide an avenue for international…

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The new concept aims to balance value for both free and paid subscribers, while preserving what made this newsletter interesting in the first place. In practice, this will take the form of alternating posts: one week will feature in-depth analysis and exclusive interviews available to all subscribers, while the next will focus on interviews with key industry figures available only to paid subscribers, such as my interview with The Exploration Company’s CEO, Hélène Huby. The first issue under this new direction will be …

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While I plan to reference this interview in future European Spaceflight articles, the full interview will be exclusive to paid subscribers.

1. How is the investigation into the Mission Possible flight proceeding? Have you identified the likely cause, and have you already begun work on a fix?

The investigation is complete. While we re-entered in one piece, the parachute did not deploy. We have identified the most probable root cause, as well as many lessons learnt, that we are now implementing on Nyx.

2. The last timeline I was aware of included Mission Possible, Mission Odyssey, and then the Nyx Earth demonstration. Since you’ve hinted at reflying Mission Possible and I see that reference to Mission Odyssey has been removed from the website, can you share the updated development path and the proposed launch date of those missions?

We will not fly another capsule between now and Nyx flying to the space station. Indeed, we want to fly to the ISS as fast as possible and be very focused. Plus, we have already learned a lot with Mission Possible and do not see the need to build another demonstrator before going to the final product.

The current date in the planning when Nyx is expected to dock with the ISS is August 2028.

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On Friday, Decathlon revealed a first look at EuroSuit, an intra-vehicular activity (IVA) spacesuit developed in collaboration with Spartan Space and the Institute of Space Medicine and Physiology (MEDES) as part of a CNES-funded initiative. The question sparked most often about the programme was what vehicle the spacesuit would ultimately be used in, a question that, intentionally or not, highlights the broader reality of Europe’s current human-spaceflight landscape. As Europe approaches a key European Space Agency Ministerial Council meeting later this month, during which human spaceflight will almost certainly be on the agenda, it is worth examining the current landscape of crewed-launch capabilities and where Europe’s ambitions realistically stand within it.

Cost Analysis

Developing a crew launch system is, unsurprisingly, an exceedingly costly endeavour, typically requiring billions in upfront investment. …

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On the Market Pulse side, I have added the Euronext Helios Space Index as a general benchmark for the European space market. While I think the index is weighted too heavily toward aerospace and defence giants and not pure space businesses, it does serve as a general indicator.

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to share them.

Market Pulse

Why these companies: Europe has fewer publicly traded pure-play space companies than one might expect. As a result, most space-related indices are heavily skewed toward aircraft and defence primes, with core businesses that lie outside the space …

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1. Investment in expanding satellite manufacturing capacities continues with EnduroSat raising $104 million to boost production output and OHB acquiring a TechniSat plant to increase its electronics manufacturing capabilities.

2. Orbital tracking capabilities were a focus of the week, with Thales unveiling AURORE, a first-of-its-kind radar system for real-time monitoring of objects in low Earth orbit, and Slingshot Aerospace securing a UK Space Agency contract to deploy 13 optical sensors worldwide to enhance debris and satellite tracking.

3. Europe’s efforts to strengthen space resilience and develop sovereign space capabilities for defence applications took another step forward, with ESA launching the European Resilience from Space programme in partnership with the European Union.

Market Pulse - 27 to 31 Oct

Why these companies: Europe has fewer publicly traded pure-play space companies than one might expect. As a result, most space-related indices are heavily skewed toward aircraft and defence primes, with core businesses that lie outside the space sector.

Snapshot
All but one of the companies tracked by the Europe In Space Market Pulse saw declines last week, with the largest concentrated among launch and manufacturing firms.

• OHB fell 15.6% and Avio dropped 14.6% amid profit-taking after recent strong runs, and investor sentiment cooled across industrial and defence-linked stocks.

• In the satellite communications segment, Eutelsat slipped 5.7% amid continued pressure from competition and uncertainty about how the company will manage its debt burden, while SES was broadly steady, down just 0.15%.

• AAC Clyde Space declined 3.4%, reflecting pressure on small-cap growth names, whereas Seraphim Space Investment Trust bucked the trend with a modest 2.4% gain.

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So much ink, both literal and digital, has already been spilled on “Project Bromo.” And while there is a part of me who thinks there is little left to add, there are inconsistencies and omissions that I feel are worth clarifying. As a result, this will be a special edition of the market report, with our regularly scheduled programming returning next week.

The Starlink Boogeyman

Project Bromo is necessary to compete with Starlink. This is an annoyingly prevalent line that makes no sense. Starlink builds its own satellites, which it launches aboard SpaceX rockets. The company then offers high-speed internet connectivity to both consumers and businesses. Starlink also doesn’t manufacture satellites for other companies. Neither Airbus Defence and Space, Leonardo, nor Thales is offering a Starlink competitor. They do not compete.

There is an argument to be had that Starlink fueled a shift to low Earth orbit satellite-based telecommunications away from the larger Geostationary (GEO) satellites…

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Five highlights from last week

• The European Union announced the launch of the European Space Shield, described as “a comprehensive European system of space capabilities that serve defence purposes.”

• Germany and France signed an agreement to implement the ODIN’S EYE missile early warning systems. No expected operational date was shared.

• The announcement that U.S. President Trump would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the coming weeks to discuss ending the conflict in Ukraine triggered a decline in European aerospace and defence industry stock prices.

• German rocket builder HyImpulse raised €45 million to continue development of its three-stage SL1 small launch vehicle.

• Beyond Gravity has announced a significant boost in its capacity to manufacture solar-array drive mechanisms from 36 to 200 units annually.

Market Pulse - 13 October to 17 October

Why these companies: Europe has fewer publicly traded pure-play space companies than one might expect. As a result, most space-related indices are heavily skewed toward aircraft and defence primes, with core businesses that lie outside the space sector.

Analysis: After an extraordinary run, Avio suffered a setback this week, with its share price falling nearly 20% to close at €44.35, its lowest level in a month. The decline was the steepest among companies tracked in the Europe in Space Market Pulse watchlist, all of which ended the week in negative territory.

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Next, I have shifted to using Google Finance as a source for all stock prices in this report. This move is part of an ongoing commitment to enhance the reliability and accuracy of the Market Pulse. Along those lines, I have also shifted to calculating one-week percentage changes based on my own historical data. The one-year change will be sourced from Google Finance for now until I have accumulated enough historical data to make these calculations myself.

The Market Report will continue to evolve over the coming weeks, months, and years. If you have any suggestions or comments, I am always excited to hear from readers. Enjoy this week’s issue.

Market Pulse - 6 October to 10 October

Why these companies: Europe has fewer publicly traded pure-play space companies than one might expect. As a result, most space-related indices are heavily skewed toward aircraft and defence primes, with core businesses that lie outside the space sector.

Analysis: The European space market, like many others, succumbed to broader geopolitical fears over the last week. The downturn was, however, not uniform. A positive investor note allowed Avio to mostly weather the storm, ending the week with marginal gains. The week’s volatility showed that while the sector is sensitive to macro shocks, strong individual company stories are still driving investor interest.

Avio weathers the storm

Avio came close to securing another substantial weekly gain but ultimately finished the week up just 1.1%, weighed down by wider geopolitical instability.

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On 3 October, the European Space Agency announced that it would purchase commercial cargo transportation services to the International Space Station (ISS). According to the agency, the mission will carry up to 5,000 kilograms of cargo to the ISS by no later than the fourth quarter of 2028. The mission will serve to fulfil the agency’s commitments under the ISS Common System Operations Costs (CSOC) framework, covering operations from 2026 through to the station’s eventual decommissioning.

The CSOC framework divides the responsibility for covering the ongoing costs of operating and maintaining the International Space Station among its partner states. These costs cover crew and cargo transportation, life-support systems, power, communications, and general station upkeep. Each partner state contributes either financially or through in-kind services, such as crew or cargo transport.

At present, ESA has no means of meeting an in-kind cargo transport contribution. In May 2024…

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Why these companies: Europe has fewer publicly traded pure-play space companies than one might expect. As a result, most space-related indices are heavily skewed toward aircraft and defence primes, with core businesses that lie outside the space sector.

Insight: The past week was strong for European space equities, with most tracked companies posting notable gains amid continued investor confidence in the sector’s strategic importance under heightened geopolitical pressures. There are, however, clear signs that parts of the rally may prove short-lived, with recent price action driven by a mix of short-term catalysts and speculative momentum rather than sustained fundamental improvements.

Triple-digit surge: OHB SE was the clear standout of the week. The company’s share price soared 105.78% over the past week, including a 39.04% surge on Friday, 3 October. This latest surge followed a 30.46% gain the week before. The rally appears largely driven by Germany’s €35 billion commitment to space-related defence programmes over the next five years, with investors betting that OHB will capture a meaningful share of this funding as the country’s primary industrial partner for military space systems. However, the magnitude of OHB’s rise suggests additional factors are at play, with no other German aerospace or defence stocks remotely approaching a triple-digit spike over the same period.

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