OHB breaks ground on new facility in Bremen

On the 2’800 square metre plot, a building complex is to be built here and completed by spring 2020. In the future, satellite projects will be designed and realised in the 1’000 square meter integration hall of the clean room class ISO 8 as well as various integration areas and offices on an area of around 1’500 square meters. The company is investing around EUR 14 million in this new venture. "In a few years' time, OHB satellites will emerge here whose applications or generated data will bring direct or indirect benefits to people in Europe and around the world," says Marco Fuchs, CEO of OHB SE and OHB System AG, in a press release. The new building complex bears the name PLATO – a symbolic act, as it recognises the appointment of OHB System AG as industrial prime contractor for the next major science mission PLATO by the European Space Agency ESA. "PLATO is to investigate the age-old question of whether a second earth exists in the universe. PLATO focuses on earth-like planets that circle all the way to the habitable zone around other stars that are similar to ours, "says Marco Fuchs. "The 26 cameras on the satellite will observe a large part of the hemisphere and detect very small and regular light losses that occur when planets fly by in front of the stars, temporarily covering part of the starlight."