SpaceX will launch its first Falcon 9 rocket of 2025 today, if all goes according to plan.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set to take off on Friday (Jan. 3) at 8:27 p.m. EST (0127 GMT) from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The flight will launch the Thuraya 4 spacecraft to geosynchronous orbit on behalf of Space42, a satellite and space services company based in the United Arab Emirates. The satellite will provide mobile communications services throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa for both commercial and government customers.
You can watch the launch live at SpaceX.com or via the company’s X account. Coverage should start around 8:20 p.m. ET (0120 GMT).
This will be the 20th flight for this Falcon 9 first stage booster. After lofting the satellite to orbit, the booster will return to Earth for a landing aboard SpaceX’s droneship named “A Shortfall of Gravitas,” which will be waiting offshore nearby in the Atlantic Ocean.
The first stage booster launching today’s mission previously launched the ill-fated ispace Haukto-R moon lander to the lunar surface, an ISS resupply mission as well as 13 batches of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites.
The Thuraya 4 mission will mark SpaceX’s 418th flight of a Falcon 9 rocket, and the company’s 435th mission overall. SpaceX launched more than 130 orbital missions in 2024, and this year’s total is expected to be even higher.
The satellite on today’s flight is known more formally as the Thuraya 4-NGS (Next Generation System) and was built by Airbus. The technologies aboard the satellite will “unlock innovative AI-powered services,” Ali Al Hashemi, CEO of Yahsat Space Services, one of the two companies that form Space42, said in a statement.
