WASHINGTON \u2014 Airbus executives say the turnaround in the company\u2019s space business came just in time to tap growing demand, particularly from Europe, for space capabilities as it pursues a joint venture with Thales and Leonardo.<\/p>\n
Mike Schoellhorn, chief executive of Airbus Defence and Space, said at a July 21 business update that efforts to improve the performance of its space systems business unit were yielding benefits across the division as demand for its capabilities grows.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere couldn\u2019t have been a better time to fix the space business and to be ready for the significant orders and demand that we are currently seeing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
That demand is coming from both civil and defense customers. He cited record funding for the European Space Agency at last November\u2019s ministerial conference, the IRIS\u00b2 secure connectivity constellation being led by the European Commission and interest in military satellite systems.<\/p>\n
\u201cEurope is really doubling down with constellations. You hear IRIS\u00b2. You hear military constellations. You hear Earth observation. And even in the very institutional exploration business, there\u2019s significant traction,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Airbus is able to capture that demand, he argued, because of reforms it implemented after taking nearly 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) in charges in 2023 and 2024<\/a> on space programs. The company blamed the charges on poor cost and schedule performance on programs that carried technology risks, such as its OneSat software-defined GEO communications satellite.<\/p>\n Schoellhorn said the \u201cmajor transformation\u201d of the space division to address those issues has been successful. \u201cThat has created the entrepreneurial ownership that we wanted to see.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe have really taken the lessons learned from the space mishaps before in terms of the discipline on the order intake, the quality of the order intake, the risk management, the project management, the ability to deliver and to be ready to deliver when the project starts,\u201d he said. \u201cThese have been very valuable and have been applied across the board into the whole division.\u201d<\/p>\n He did not quantify the impact of those changes on the business this year. Airbus officials at the briefing cited a blackout period ahead of the release of its financial results for the first half of 2026, scheduled for July 29.<\/p>\n Schoellhorn did state that growing demand for Earth observation data has the company mulling an expansion of that business. \u201cWhenever there\u2019s a crisis, people want pictures of that crisis, and we scramble to deliver those pictures,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re quite good at it, but we\u2019re thinking about increasing the capacity as well.\u201d<\/p>\n The improvement of the space business at Airbus comes as the company presses ahead with a joint venture that would combine that business with similar divisions at Leonardo and Thales Alenia Space. The three companies formally announced plans for the joint venture, code-named Bromo, in October<\/a> after more than a year of negotiations.<\/p>\n