Airbus has been selected by Al Yah Satellite Communications Company (Yahsat to build the Thuraya 4-NGS, the next generation, mobile telecommunications system that will drive the continued advancement of Thuraya’s L-band business.
 
Thuraya 4-NGS will deliver higher capabilities and flexibility while increasing capacity and coverage across Europe, Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East, enabling next generation mobility solutions for all customer segments, including defense, government and enterprise.
 
This is a major milestone in Yahsat’s commitment towards transforming Thuraya and rolling out its next-generation system, which entails a complete overhaul of its space and ground platforms, enabling a new set of services, products and solutions, across a greater coverage area.
 
The new capabilities will drive leadership 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, while reinforcing Thuraya’s leading position in the MSS voice market.
 
Thuraya’s next generation system will provide a world of opportunities to customers, service partners, hardware manufacturers and integrators, enhancing user experience across land, sea and air to support multiple customer segments, including government, consumer and enterprise.
 
Furthermore, an advanced portfolio of solutions to support government and defense users will accelerate Thuraya’s leadership in this market, both within the UAE,
regionally and globally. Meanwhile, all existing products and services will continue to be supported by Thuraya’s space and ground segments, enabling service continuity during and after the transformation programme.
 
This latest commitment from Yahsat takes its total committed investment to date to well over US$500 million, and more is anticipated in the coming years, including an option with Airbus to build Thuraya 5-NGS (an additional satellite identical to Thuraya 4-NGS), strengthening its coverage and capabilities across the Asia Pacific region.
 
Based on the state-of-the-art, all-electric, Airbus Eurostar Neo Platform, Thuraya 4-NGS will incorporate a large 12 meter L-band antenna and a payload with on-board processing that will provide advanced routing flexibility of as many as 3200 channels, with dynamic power allocation over a large number of spot beams. This satellite is scheduled to initiate operations in 2024.

---

Source: www.satnews.com
Link to the source: https://news.satnews.com/2020/08/31/thuraya-orders-their-next-satellite-from-airbus-defense-space/