City Labs Launches 1st FAA-Cleared Commercial Nuclear Spacecraft on SpaceX Falcon 9
Updated
Updated · spacedaily.com · Jul 9
City Labs Launches 1st FAA-Cleared Commercial Nuclear Spacecraft on SpaceX Falcon 9
3 articles · Updated · spacedaily.com · Jul 9
Summary
BOHR reached low Earth orbit Tuesday as one of 81 payloads on SpaceX’s Transporter-17, carrying a tritium betavoltaic battery in the first commercial nuclear mission approved under the FAA’s new review process.
The 1U CubeSat runs its normal operations on solar power; the nuclear unit is a technology-demonstration payload that produces only nanowatts to microwatts, enough for long-life sensors rather than a full satellite bus.
The bigger milestone is regulatory: the FAA granted payload authorization on Sept. 30, 2025, after a City Labs-led safety analysis validated by Sandia, creating a template other commercial nuclear payload developers can follow.
City Labs expects orbital performance data within weeks to months, testing whether the tritium device survives launch and space conditions well enough to support future civil and defense uses in shadowed or long-duration missions.
The flight does not solve high-power lunar needs—NASA is still targeting fission surface reactors by 2030—but it opens a practical path for small commercial nuclear payloads that previously faced case-by-case government review.