Airbus explores sale of US satellite unit as production moves to Europe

Airbus is sounding out buyers for its US small-satellite business, including a Florida factory that helped build the first generation of OneWeb’s low-Earth-orbit internet satellites. No sale has been decided, and the review does not cover Airbus’s wider US Space & Defense operations. But it follows the company’s decision to shift production of future OneWeb satellites to France and its planned combination of European space businesses with Leonardo and Thales. The moves are formally separate, yet together they show Airbus concentrating satellite manufacturing and investment in a larger European platform designed to compete more effectively in a market reshaped by fast, high-volume operators such as SpaceX.