Arms group Rheinmetall and satellite builder OHB are in talks to launch a joint bid for an Elon Musk-style broadband constellation for the German armed forces.
People familiar with the matter say the partnership talks are at an early stage, but the prize is a chunk of Berlin’s €35bn military space technology budget.
The proposed joint venture would chase a multibillion-euro contract to build a secure satellite communications network in low Earth orbit for the Bundeswehr. German officials have already started pitching it as a military “Starlink for the Bundeswehr.”
We suspect that this is not so much serious branding but a move to hack off Elon Musk.
The Düsseldorf tank maker and the Bremen-headquartered satellite outfit are moving as Europe’s defence and space players jostle for contracts and Germany tries to cut reliance on the US.
Starlink, owned by Musk’s SpaceX, is the largest space-based broadband provider, with more than 9,000 satellites serving customers from roughly 2,000km above Earth. What began as a commercial service turned into wartime plumbing in Ukraine, where portable terminals kept communications running after other networks were wrecked or jammed.
Starlink could have secured a deal with Germany if it had been run by someone without close links to the US government and the Far Right in Europe.
Space consultancy Novaspace reckons Germany’s spending spree would make it the world’s third-biggest space technology spender after the US and China.
German military division, space co-ordinator Armin Fleischmann told Handelsblatt that the network would be built “over the next few years, primarily with German companies”.
He said the priority was Nato’s eastern flank, where Germany is building a 5,000-strong permanent brigade in Lithuania, and that “everything else will follow”.
Fleischmann added that the military had completed its specifications and that procurement authorities were preparing to issue a tender.
Rheinmetall has long lived on tanks, artillery and ammunition, but it has been muscling into new domains as Germany’s defence budget balloons.
It landed its first space contract at the end of last year, worth up to €2bn, partnering with Finnish space tech firm Iceye to build satellites at a former car factory.
That work targets radar reconnaissance, handy for spotting things through cloud cover, bad weather or the dark, and the kind of capability generals love on PowerPoint.
OHB, chief executive Marco Fuchs has warned that stitching Europe’s two biggest satellite makers into one outfit could be anti-competitive.
As Europe’s third-largest satellite manufacturer, OHB could find solo life tough, but a new German sovereign network would let it expand its small- and medium-sized satellite range.
OHB already supplies radar reconnaissance satellites to the Bundeswehr and is chasing more military work, recently lifting earnings and turnover forecasts on hopes of a space-spend boom.
