Overview
- BOHR, which launched Tuesday, July 7, reached low Earth orbit on SpaceX's Transporter-17 Falcon 9 from Vandenberg and began in-space testing of its payload.
- The cubesat carries City Labs' NanoTritium betavoltaic device, a tritium-based battery that converts beta particles from radioactive decay into continuous low-level electricity.
- City Labs led a safety analysis for the payload that Sandia National Laboratories independently validated, and the FAA issued definitive NSPM-20 payload authorization on September 30, 2025.
- Although the NanoTritium unit is powering and validating a demonstration payload, BOHR still uses solar panels for its main bus because betavoltaics deliver only very low power compared with RTGs or reactors.
- Backed by Department of Defense funding and of interest to NASA and defense users, the mission sets a regulatory and technical precedent that could enable long-duration, light-independent sensors and lunar instruments if the technology can be scaled.