Transporter-17 Rideshare Launches First Commercial Nuclear-Powered Satellite, Tops 1,800 Rideshare Payloads

SpaceX's Transporter-17 dedicated smallsat rideshare mission lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 3:12 a.m. ET on July 7, 2026, carrying 81 payloads on a Falcon 9 and pushing SpaceX's cumulative rideshare payload count past 1,800 since the Transporter program began. The manifest included City Labs' BOHR CubeSat, the first commercial nuclear-powered satellite and first nuclear CubeSat ever flown, demonstrating the company's proprietary NanoTritium betavoltaic technology as a continuous power source independent of solar panels. The Falcon 9 first stage landed on a drone ship in the Pacific roughly 8.5 minutes after liftoff.