Rocket Factory Augsburg

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Welcome to our in-depth analysis of Rocket Factory Augsburg, originally published on January 11th 2023 and most recently updated October 7th, 2026 Updated content. Make sure to check out our mission statement and why we do what we do. Look at our New Space guide if you want explanations of terms and concepts used in our research. And follow us on X for updates.

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🚀 Update from October 2026

• Still no launch. RFA ONE has never flown. A first stage was destroyed in a test fire at SaxaVord on 19 August 2024, and the rebuilt rocket was taken off the pad again on 28 July 2026, which cancelled the August window. RFA has not named a new date.
• A new chief executive. Alexander Dahm became CEO on 5 October 2026, the third in eighteen months. Co-founder Jörn Spurmann left the board in April 2026 and his predecessor Indulis Kalnins on 11 August 2026.
• Public money. ESA signed the European Launcher Challenge contract of EUR 186.9 million in August 2026, which requires an orbital launch before 2028. Counting it, about EUR 222 million of public money has been promised to RFA since 2020.
• The accounts. RFA reported a profit of EUR 1.5 million for 2024, but only because it booked EUR 21.2 million of its own development work as an asset. Without that the year was a deficit of EUR 19.7 million.
• The audit. Every audited year from 2021 to 2024 carries a going-concern warning, and each set of accounts was filed late.
• Funding. Money arrives as convertible debt, not as priced equity rounds. The bond issued in March 2026 sets a conversion price of EUR 28 per share, against EUR 15 in 2023 and 2024. Share capital is EUR 13,255,596.

What you should know about RFA: Rocket Factory Augsburg

Rocket Factory Augsburg: How RFA became one of Germany’s leading rocket companies

Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) is a new space company that was established in 2018 as a spin-off of OHB SE by Jörn Spurmann, Stefan Brieschenk, Hans Steininger and Marco Fuchs. It became a stock corporation in December 2019, with MT Aerospace Holding and the former ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain as its founding shareholders.

Rocket Factory Augsburg has developed a business strategy that aims to beat competitors on cadence and pricing. The company planned to offer payloads of up to 1,300 kg at a base cost of 3,000 to 4,000 dollars per kg, while launching roughly 50 times a year to dedicated orbits for full satellite constellations by 2030. RFA uses a variable pricing model, where customers pick services for their flight on a base model, so pricing starts at 3,000 dollars and lands well above that in practice.

In addition to its low cost pricing, RFA is also focusing on in-orbit services, using the “Redshift” third orbital stage that enables satellite and constellation management in orbit. Running as the “Uber for the price of a bus ticket”, RFA wants to make low Earth orbit more accessible by offering servicing, refuelling and end-of-life services to its partners.

RFA moved into its 5,000 square metre headquarters in Augsburg in March 2021. The accounts counted 76 full-time employees at the end of that year, 217 at the end of 2023 and 208 at the end of 2024, and the job board advertised more than 300 colleagues in September 2026.

RFA’s rockets: RFA ONE and the “Helix” engine

RFA is developing the RFA ONE rocket. It is a three-stage kerosene and liquid-oxygen (KeroLOX) vehicle with a diameter of 2 metres and a length of 30 metres. The first two stages are powered by nine plus one Helix engines, and the third orbital stage uses its own propellant. The company advertises a maximum payload of 1,300 kg into a 500 km sun-synchronous orbit.

RFA’s Helix engine uses kerosene and liquid oxygen. It runs on oxygen-rich staged combustion rather than a gas generator cycle, which means the turbopump is driven by oxygen-rich gas that is then injected into the main chamber and burned with the remaining fuel. Staged combustion gives a cleaner burn and better efficiency than a gas generator.

The payload figure needs two labels. ESA’s description of the Launcher Challenge contract and OHB’s May 2026 investor materials both put the current rocket, which OHB calls Block 1, at about 500 kg to a 500 km sun-synchronous orbit. The 1,300 kg figure belongs to a Block 2 version with a reusable first stage and a larger Helix engine, which OHB dates to 2028. Nothing of Block 2 has been built.

Two further vehicles were presented internally and never confirmed by RFA. The RFA One Reusable was shown as early as February 2021, 42 metres tall with 17 Helix engines on the first stage, carrying 1,300 kg in reusable form or 2,300 kg expendable. The RFA One Max, mentioned at the European Space Conference in January 2023, would add another ring of engines and carry 700 kg to medium Earth orbit. Neither has appeared in a company release since.

What makes Rocket Factory Augsburg’s services unique

RFA has grouped its strategy and service offering into three clusters.

RFA uses a lot of off-the-shelf components. The company is not going for the full vertical integration approach that Isar Aerospace uses, and focuses instead on low-cost scalable production and its orbital services. Through this approach RFA sources roughly 40% of its components from specialised and additive manufacturing providers, many from the automotive and manufacturing industry of southern Germany.

Rocket Factory Augsburg has developed a propulsion cluster that uses staged combustion to deliver high performance at a low price point. RFA is the only company in western Europe to fly this cycle. Engine design, as far as we can see, is done fully in-house, unlike many structural parts.

RFA’s Orbital Transfer Vehicle “Redshift”, technically a third stage, is the distinctive part of its approach. The stage is meant to place whole constellations in their final orbits and to offer inspection, refuelling with fluids and gases, attitude and orbit control, power supply, end-of-life management and asset monitoring. The payload figures below are the company’s own and date from 2023.

A truly international rocket company: RFA’s global footprint

RFA is headquartered in Augsburg, which gave the company its name, and used the DLR test site at Lampoldshausen nearby in its early years.

In January 2023 RFA announced SaxaVord Spaceport in Shetland as its primary launch site, with exclusive use of pad Fredo and a promised investment in the tens of millions of pounds. By May 2023 that came to about EUR 13 million for the launch stool and other infrastructure. RFA also signed agreements with Southern Launch in Australia, with the Azores in Portugal and with Andøya Space Center in Norway, where the maiden flight was once planned. Andøya was dropped after RFA opened a British subsidiary, Rocket Factory Ltd, in November 2022.

Engine and stage testing moved to Esrange near Kiruna in Sweden, where the upper stage fired for about 280 seconds in May 2023 and where the second stage was tested again before it shipped to Shetland in 2026. The Portuguese subsidiary develops the Redshift orbital transfer vehicle with the Portuguese space agency.

Major milestones of Rocket Factory Augsburg so far

From the lost stage to the cancelled window, 2024 to 2026

RFA fired four engines of its first stage on pad Fredo in May 2024, the first rocket firing at SaxaVord. On 19 August 2024 the company tried all nine. Eight ignited, one suffered what RFA called a very unusual anomaly, and a fire on the oxygen side destroyed the whole first stage. Nobody was hurt, the pad needed only minor repairs, and RFA said afterwards that the fire suppression systems had not been sized adequately.

Rebuilding took eighteen months. A new first stage reached Shetland in February 2026 and RFA said in March that the causes of the 2024 failure were understood and addressed, with the first orbital flight scheduled for summer 2026. Nine engines were integrated in June, SaxaVord announced a five-week launch window from 10 August, and in late July the complete rocket stood on the pad and was pressurised for the first time. On 28 July RFA found a problem, took the rocket apart and gave no detail beyond that. SaxaVord put its road closures on hold on 5 August and the window was gone. OHB’s results presentation the next day said RFA was on track for a first test flight later in the year and did not mention the de-stack.

As of 7 October 2026 there is no new window and no new date. ESA’s own September text describes a hot fire of the complete rocket as coming soon, followed by Test Flight-1. That makes fifteen first-launch dates since OHB first named one in 2019.

The licences are in place. The Civil Aviation Authority granted RFA a launch operator licence for RFA ONE on 14 January 2025, the first of its kind in the United Kingdom, capped at ten launches in any twelve months, and a marine licence for falling debris runs to 30 June 2027. What is missing is a flight. Bavaria meanwhile declared RFA’s explosives permit from 2020 invalid in March 2026, because the document had been lost.

Rocket Factory Augsburg: Funding and valuation of RFA over the years

RFA was founded in 2018 as Rocket Factory Augsburg GmbH by MT Aerospace Holding GmbH, itself backed by OHB SE, and by Jean-Jacques Dordain, the former head of ESA. It became Rocket Factory Augsburg AG in December 2019. MT Aerospace Holding is funded by MT Aerospace and by Apollo Capital Partners GmbH, an investment vehicle of the MT Aerospace chief executive Hans Steininger.

RFA has expanded with internal funding from OHB, using a share structure that offers more funding options than the limited liability form that Isar Aerospace uses. The shareholder split we published in 2023 looked as follows.

Three years later the picture is murkier rather than clearer. OHB’s group chart for 2025 and the first half of 2026 reports 56.8% of RFA. The shareholding list in the same annual report says 65.1%, accounted for at equity, with a footnote that voting rights are restricted. OHB states that it holds roughly 65% of the equity but does not control the company, which is why RFA left full consolidation in 2023. In October 2024 the KKR entities behind Orchid Lux filed a notice under section 20 of the German Stock Corporation Act saying they indirectly hold a majority of RFA, which runs through their stake in OHB. KKR reduced that stake to about 20% in mid-2026 and no withdrawal of the notice has been filed. An AG publishes no shareholder list, so the rest cannot be read from the register.

Money arrives as convertible debt

RFA has never filed a priced equity round. Every injection since November 2020 has been a convertible bond (“Wandelschuldverschreibung”), and each one sets a conversion price that the statutes also use for over-the-counter trades. The first bond priced shares at EUR 2. By 2023 the price was EUR 15, in August 2024 EUR 18, and the bond issued on 25 March 2026 sets EUR 28 with a 5.5% coupon and a maturity in March 2030.

KKR agreed EUR 30 million of convertibles in August 2023 at a 5% coupon and a EUR 15 conversion price, in three tranches, the last paid in 2024. Christian Ollig of KKR joined the supervisory board in December 2023 and was replaced by Till van Dorp at the annual meeting of 31 August 2026. The register shows that the conditional capital backing the KKR, January 2024 and March 2026 bonds is almost untouched, so those bonds have not been converted into shares.

Conversions of the older and cheaper bonds have issued 3,755,596 shares, which is 28.3% of today’s share capital of EUR 13,255,596. OHB itself holds EUR 24.2 million of RFA convertibles on its own balance sheet.

The debt grew faster than the cash. Convertible bonds owed rose from EUR 2.0 million at the end of 2020 to EUR 56.3 million at the end of 2024, while cash at the same dates never passed EUR 8.3 million and twice sat below EUR 0.5 million. In 2024 RFA secured EUR 8.9 million of those bonds on movable assets and EUR 10.0 million on its own intellectual property. The annual meeting of 31 August 2026 created authorised capital of up to EUR 6.6 million and conditional capital of EUR 2.7 million for further convertibles.

Public money: what was promised, and what arrived

Grants do not show up as income in the accounts. They are deducted from the cost of the prototype that RFA capitalises, EUR 0.3 million in 2022, EUR 0.8 million in 2023 and EUR 4.1 million in 2024, so they reduce the asset rather than the loss.

What the 2024 profit is

RFA reported a profit of EUR 1.5 million for 2024 after a loss of EUR 8.4 million in 2023. Revenue jumped to EUR 20.1 million, of which EUR 15.0 million came from four ESA Boost! milestones, and the company booked EUR 21.2 million of its own development work as an asset.

Capitalising own work (“aktivierte Eigenleistungen”) is legal under German accounting rules and common among developers. It also means the reported numbers show a fraction of the spending. Take the capitalised work out and 2024 was a deficit of EUR 19.7 million, 2023 one of EUR 25.1 million, and the five years from 2020 together EUR 76.3 million rather than the reported EUR 13.9 million. The development asset stood at EUR 53.9 million at the end of 2024, with another EUR 20.4 million for the launch site under construction. The first stage destroyed in August 2024 was not written down, and the accounts mention no insurance.

The audit reports carry the same warning four years running. WirtschaftsTreuhand of Munich gave unqualified opinions for 2021 to 2024, each with a paragraph on a material uncertainty about going concern: strained liquidity in 2021, the need for fresh money by early 2025 in 2022, and in 2023 and 2024 the first launch attempt, first planned for the third quarter of 2024 and then for the third quarter of 2025. Neither happened. The accounts were also filed late every year, 16.5 months after year-end for 2021, 18.8 for 2022 and 15.4 for 2023, against a legal limit of twelve. The 2025 accounts were approved at the annual meeting on 31 August 2026, with a loss carried forward of EUR 5,958,878, and we could not confirm their publication.

Valuation

We publish no single figure for RFA. Three dated methods give three answers.

For the record, our 2023 estimate from the conversion tables was about EUR 160 million, the January 2024 table gave EUR 183 million, and the Financial Times reported about EUR 240 million in 2023. OHB valued its own stake at EUR 118.6 million when it deconsolidated RFA in 2023 and carries it at EUR 145.4 million today. OHB also says RFA needs roughly EUR 100 million beyond the Launcher Challenge money.

Rocket Factory Augsburg: Contracts, revenue and business model

RFA positions itself as “the service of an Uber for the price of a bus” with three goals: the lowest cost through industrialised engine production and standard industrial parts, last-mile delivery with an orbital stage that can place up to 100 satellites in one launch, and space services such as satellite servicing, constellation replenishment, refuelling and debris removal.

By 2023 the company counted 47 million dollars of signed contracts, 60 million in quotation and letters of intent with its parent OHB worth about 128 million. Among the signed contracts were 16 million dollars of institutional work for ESA and the Portuguese agency and 31 million dollars of launch contracts with Plus Ultra, Lunar Research Service, Neutron Star Systems, Sener Aeroespacial and OHB Cosmos. Most of those launches were booked for 2024 and 2025.

None of them has flown. The customers of the two DLR flights, seven payloads on the first and eight on the second, have been waiting since 2022 and 2023. RFA also signed a framework contract under the ESA and European Union Flight Ticket Initiative in May 2024 and a term sheet with the French space agency in June 2023 for launches from Kourou from 2025, which did not happen either.

Revenue in the accounts has never come from launching anything. It was EUR 2.5 million in 2021, EUR 3.4 million in 2022, EUR 2.7 million in 2023 and EUR 20.1 million in 2024, and it consists of ESA and study milestones. RFA advertised a price of EUR 3 million per launch in February 2021 and publishes no price today.

Rocket Factory Augsburg: Salary, benefits and working at RFA

RFA works across Germany, a subsidiary in Portugal, test operations in Sweden and launch operations in Scotland. The company operates in English, so German is useful rather than required, and it leans heavily on students and interns. At the end of 2021 the accounts counted 128 people, of whom 76 were full-time, 49 were interns or working students and 3 were apprentices. In 2021 the company averaged 598 applications and 79 interviews a month.

The accounts counted 249 employees on average in 2024, against 199 in 2023 and 133 in 2022. At the end of 2024 there were 266 people including interns and working students, of whom 208 were full-time, down from 217 a year earlier. The same accounts put staff turnover in 2024 at 50.37%. About 25 people worked at the UK launch site and about six in Sweden.

Company Structure: How RFA is set up internally

RFA’s company structure is made up of 6 core technical and engineering departments which are responsible for the rocket development. These are:

• Propulsion (a rocket needs an engine)
• Structures (engine needs propellants and a proper structure)
• Launch (rockets have to take off, preferably without exploding)
• Avionics (they also have to fly)
• GNC (once they fly, you want to control where)
• Production (did it work? now let’s produce hundreds of them)

Then, of course, you have the traditional internal departments such as HR, IT, Finance and Sales. What seems to be the most interesting department at RFA could just be the “Special Projects Rocketry / Project Department”:

Introducing RFA’s “Special-Projects Rocketry Team”

If you’re hearing a lot of amazing things coming out of RFA, particularly rumors what they’re working on or developing, it might just be the work of the “Special-Projects Rocketry Team” (SPRT). In the words of RFA, the SPRT is

“a dedicated, dynamic and international environment that aims for excellence by creating high-performance engineering solutions while keeping prototyping and production costs at an absolute minimum.“

Now this is not “officially” a thing but can be found in several job ads. We believe that the SPRT is basically RFA’s – and by extension OHB’s – internal task force that specifically looks at potential future space technology, new ways of operation and production of rockets and everything “NewSpace” with a first principal approach. With this task force, RFA is for one looking at the future to see where the space industry is headed, but also analyses how it could implement potential findings into its own production stream.

Jobs include roles such as “Predevelopment Engineer Future Space Technologies”, “Avionics Technical Project Manager”, “Predevelopment Engineer Vehicle Design” and many others. Quite interesting and so far not something we have found at any other NewSpace company.

Salary and benefits at RFA

The salary at RFA is dependent on your position, education and experience. Since RFA is an indirect subsidiary of MT Aerospace as well as OHB systems, the salary structure and ranges are pretty good and won’t be too low, as is usually the case in externally funded startups. For engineers, we estimate salary ranges from EUR 55,000 to EUR 75,000 depending on experience. Business administration should range between EUR 40,000 to EUR 50,000. As of 2021, there were no bonuses (christmas, vacation) which is standard for larger corporates in Germany, though the absence of bonuses can expected for a startup in its early years. Overtime is probably only paid in accordance with local laws, which generally allow you to work 20 hours extra per month without further pay.

As a young company, RFA offers share participation (VSOP/ESOP) and gives leading members of the team a direct participation through shares and stock options. As per our estimate, around 5 – 15% of the shares are currently held by employees of the company.

We expect salary at RFA to be a bit lower than salary at Isar Aerospace, simply due to the fact that the living costs in Augsburg are much lower than the living costs in Munich for Isar’s employees.

Tools in use and skills you should bring if you want to work at Rocket Factory Augsburg

About 50 roles were open in September 2026, and the job board advertised more than 300 colleagues from over 40 countries. To help you understand which tools and skills are required, we have aggregated some of the things that RFA needs, structured by department:

My opinion on Rocket Factory Augsburg and why you should keep an eye on them

What I like about RFA

• Producing rockets like cars: Mass manufacturing is required for mass migration to outer space, so using a very first-principle inspired approach seems promising. RFA probably also comes at an opportune time for many manufacturing companies and car-suppliers in southern Germany, who have to adapt their business model massively due to the introduction of electronic vehicles. When RFA asks for specialized serivces for combustion engines (such as rockets), these companies are probably welcoming them with open arms.
• Space services, and in-orbit servicing: RFA makes LEO seem much more relatable and close. The “third stage” could be a game-changer in services provided to commercial, governmental and military institutions. The variable pricing model is also interesting, in which orbital serivces can be included, but are not necessary for every payload purchaser.
• Outgoing and transparent: RFA’s PR game has been pretty good and they have been quite transparent about their progress. Several podcasts from the management and engineers show the passion the team has for the company, its products and its rocket. Update, October 2026: that transparency has thinned. RFA has not said what went wrong on the pad in July 2026, co-founder Jörn Spurmann left the board in April 2026 without a word, and the change of chief executive in August was announced eight weeks later.

What I don’t like about RFA

• Heavy political capital: Some might put this into the “what we like” bracket, but I believe that heavy political capital can slow down developing and really moving the company and technology forward long-term, especially once the rockets succeed and steady revenues through governmental/ESA contracts might even disincentivize capital-intense developments (i.e. reusability, medium or heavy-payload vehicles). (Update August 2023: With KKRs investment into not just RFA but also OHB, planning to take it private, this obviously means increased focus on commercialization and a rapid changes in company strategy, which we take as an overall good sign.) Update, October 2026: KKR did not take OHB private. OHB raised EUR 484 million on the market in mid-2026 and KKR cut its stake to about 20%. Public money now dominates: about EUR 222 million has been promised to RFA, against roughly EUR 90 million of convertible debt actually drawn.
• Not founder-led: The company is an extension of OHB SE and MT Aerospace, two rather large aerospace and defense companies. While the management team is incentivized through shares (owning around 5 – 10% of the shares by our estimates), it feels a bit different from a founder-led startup company. Update, October 2026: Jörn Spurmann left the board in April 2026, Stefan Brieschenk remains, and the company has had three chief executives since April 2025.
• Dates that never hold: Since 2019 RFA and its owners have named fifteen different first-launch dates. Readers should treat any new one as a plan rather than a schedule.
• Accounts that show a fraction of the spending: Capitalising development work is legal, but it turns a EUR 19.7 million deficit into a reported profit of EUR 1.5 million. Four audit reports in a row warn about going concern, and every year’s accounts were filed late.

Things to watch out for

• RFA One MAX, RFA One Reusable: We’re quite curious about the so far unannounced but rumored RFA One Max rocket engine which should bring more launch capability to the company and possibly a commercial, medium-class rocket onto the European continent. There have also been words of reusability, though considering strategic issues (where would you reland in Europe currently?) this is probably still years off.
• The orbital gate in the ESA contract: the Launcher Challenge money runs to mid-2029 and requires an orbital launch before 2028. Isar Aerospace reached orbit in September 2026. RFA has not left the pad.
• A new window at SaxaVord, a hot fire of the complete rocket, and whether the 2025 accounts appear.

Want to know more about Rocket Factory Augsburg? Here are some tips:

• RFA’s chief engineer Stefan Brieschenk has done a great podcast with NASA Spaceflight that is definitely worth checking out to know more about the rocket
• RFA’s former chief commercial officer Jörn Spurmann has done an episode with Mars Chroniken on their commercial efforts and current status in February 2023 (in German)

Updates on Rocket Factory Augsburg

October 2026: a full rework. We restored the review’s history and tables, added the audit and going-concern record from the filed accounts for 2020 to 2024, the filing delays, the public-money table, every first-launch date since 2019, the convertible bond issued in March 2026 at EUR 28 per share, the annual meeting of August 2026, the CEO change of 5 October 2026 and the Block 1 payload figure. See the 2026 update post.

August 2024: the first stage was lost in a test fire at SaxaVord on 19 August 2024.

August 2023: the new funding round from KKR of EUR 30,000,000 and the launch date moved from the fourth quarter of 2023 to the second quarter of 2024.

May 2023: information from RFA’s 2021 annual report, published on 17 May 2023, and from Frank Strang of SaxaVord in a UK government hearing. A new convertible round in April 2023 valued the company at about EUR 160,000,000, OHB moved to a new strategic investor for its Series B, the Redshift section was updated and the second Portuguese subsidiary in the Azores was added.

Structured company information on Rocket Factory Augsburg AG

Interested in more space companies? Read our other reviews and analysis

Read our reviews of Isar Aerospace, HyImpulse, PLD Space, SaxaVord Spaceport, Andøya Space Center, Skyrora and the German Offshore Spaceport Alliance. See RFA One next to Europe’s other rockets in European rockets compared, and every first-launch date RFA has given in European launch dates.

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