 Half of its 20 transponders Ku were switched off on 7 December 2001 after a solar-panel malfunction.Arabsat let a contract on 22 October 2003 for the manufacture and launch of the fourth generation of Arabsat satellites, based on the Astrium's Eurostar E2000+ platform and Alcatel Space payload.The first of these, Arabsat-4A, was lost in space due to a launcher failure.