OHB CEO Marco Fuchs welcomes milestones for European future in space

Bremen, October 26, 2018. Marco Fuchs, the CEO of the technology and space company OHB SE and Vice President Space of the German Aerospace Industries Association (BDLI), welcomes the milestones laid out in a vision for Europe’s future in space that was presented to the ESA member states’ ministers responsible for space at their interim meeting in Madrid. "In particular, the roadmap for the sustained and efficient funding and implementation of space programs is very encouraging indeed from the point of view of the German space industry,” said Fuchs. "The ministers’ joint statement pledging their full support for the European launch vehicle industry and, thus, for the Ariane 6 and Vega C programs is an important signal for safeguarding Europe’s competitive and autonomous access to space in the future."

The resolutions passed by the ministers to steadily develop the European Earth observation program Copernicus and to position Europe as a key player in space exploration - on the moon and beyond to Mars - confirm OHB’s strategic orientation to these goals. “Similarly, a clear statement on the significant increase in the importance attached to protecting the earth from dangers from space, such as space weather and near-earth objects as well as space debris, bears out the activities currently being performed by the OHB Group in these areas. I was particularly pleased with the agreement reached in Madrid between ESA and the Italian space agency ASI providing for a continuation of their joint activities on the “Fly Eye” telescope. This special high-performance facetted telescope is currently being built by our subsidiary OHB Italia in Milan and is due to be installed at the Monte Mufara site in Sicily in 2019.” The “Fly Eye” will be used to detect asteroids that are on a potential impact course towards the earth.

Here you can watch in a video, how the fly eye telecospe is about to be assembled in the integration hall at OHB Italia - and what it does