A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the Space42 Thuraya 4 telecommunications satellite to a geosynchronous transfer orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 8:27 p.m. on 3 January 2024. Following stage separation, Falcon 9's first stage landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

This will be the 20th flight for the Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched SES-22, ispace's HAKUTO-R MISSION 1, Amazonas-6, CRS-27, Bandwagon-1, GSAT-20, and 13 Starlink missions.

Thuraya 4 is a next generation mobile telecommunications system that will drive the continued advancement of Thuraya’s L-band business across Africa, Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East.

It will increase coverage and capacity, while delivering better capabilities and flexibility to enable next generation mobility solutions for all customer segments, including defense, government and enterprise.

Besides reinforcing Thuraya’s leadership of the MSS voice market, the new system will spur the company’s growth across many strategic product lines, such as maritime, IoT and data solutions, offering a wide spectrum of throughput capabilities and the highest speeds available in the market.

Thuraya 4 is based on the state-of-the-art all-electric Airbus Eurostar Neo Platform, which provides a superior combination of reliability, flexibility and efficiency.

It comprises a large 12-metre L-band antenna and a payload with on-board processing, facilitating advanced routing flexibility of up to 3200 channels with dynamic power allocation over a large number of spot beams.