OHB's 7% Pullback Masks a Week of Milestones: From KIRK to ESA and a Bundeswehr Office Next Door

OHB stock retreats 7% from €625 peak after 423% yearly gain, but defense tailwinds from German space budget and Spock 2 contract support strong outlook.

OHB SE investors took some chips off the table on Friday, sending the space-and-defense stock nearly 7% lower to €584 after a breathtaking run. The profit-taking trimmed the week's gain to a still-sizzling 28%, but the retreat comes after the shares had touched as high as €625 earlier in the period — a surge that lifted the company's market capitalisation to €11.2 billion. Since the start of the year, the stock has multiplied more than fivefold, clocking a gain of roughly 423%.

The pullback was steeper than at European peers: Airbus, Thales and Leonardo all slipped less than 1%, while US counterparts Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman traded virtually flat. Yet the fundamental drivers behind OHB's rally remain firmly in place. A major catalyst is the newly formed joint venture KIRK, in which OHB is working with AI specialist Helsing, sensor expert Hensoldt and Norwegian defence group Kongsberg. The consortium is vying for the Bundeswehr's prestigious Spock 2 contract — a space-based surveillance and targeting system that pairs reconnaissance satellites with real-time artificial intelligence for automated target recognition. The award could be worth billions, though details on investment and contract volume are still pending.

The German government has signalled its commitment to space in a tangible way: the federal procurement office is opening a branch directly at OHB's headquarters in Bremen. Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has earmarked around €35 billion for the space domain through 2030, and analysts view the new office as a structural advantage for OHB in securing future contracts.

Even without the defence tailwind, OHB's operational momentum is strong. First-quarter total output rose 15% to roughly €279 million, and the adjusted operating result improved at an even faster clip. The order backlog stood at €3.35 billion at the end of March, up 45% year-on-year, driven largely by the Space Systems segment. Management has guided for full-year total output of €1.4 billion and expects to cross the €2 billion mark by 2028.

On the civilian side, the European Space Agency has chosen OHB's Czech subsidiary Czechspace to lead the next phase of the SOVA-S mission, a project with a budget of nearly €35 million. Separately, the company is working with Dassault Aviation on the VORTEX-S space glider, which aims to provide autonomous European transport capacity in orbit.

Not all space news was encouraging. Competitor SpaceX postponed its twelfth Starship test flight on Friday due to technical issues, rescheduling for Saturday. The company reported a first-quarter 2026 loss of $4.28 billion on revenue of $4.7 billion, underscoring the financial hurdles that persist across the industry.

For OHB, the next major test of the stock's trajectory comes on 18 June, when the company publishes its quarterly results. Until then, the market will weigh the profit-taking against a backdrop of aggressive expansion, a record order book, and a strategic push into Europe's defence architecture.