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OpenAI to Publicly Release GPT-5.6 Models Sol, Terra and Luna on July 9

July 8, 2026 at 00:47 EDT

Foundation Models
AI Agents
Policy & Regulation

OpenAI has updated its plans to publicly release three models in its next-generation "GPT-5.6" family—Sol, Terra and Luna—on July 9, expanding access globally after an initial limited preview restricted to a handful of partners at the request of the U.S. government.

June 26, 2026 · OpenAI

GPT-5.6 Arrives as a Three-Tier Family — But Only ~20 Partners Can Touch It

OpenAI unveils Sol, Terra and Luna in a restricted preview — split along a Sun / Earth / Moon theme to map the performance-cost tradeoff. Access is limited to trusted partners at the request of the US government.

~20

partner organizations with preview access via API / Codex

variants — Sol, Terra, Luna — spanning the celestial theme

91.9%

Sol Ultra on TerminalBench 2.1, topping Claude Mythos 5 (88.0%)

Output pricing per 1M tokens

Column height is proportional to output price — Terra runs at half the cost of the prior GPT-5.5.

$30

Sol

Flagship
$5 in

$15

Terra

Balanced
$2.50 in

Luna

Fast, low-cost
$1 in

A restricted launch — coordinated with government first

Preview access came at the request of the US government, hinting at a new norm for frontier releases — one OpenAI says should not become the long-term default.

Access via API / Codex only

ChatGPT excluded during preview

General availability in coming weeks

Praise

Clear, easy-to-grasp three-tier structure
Cost efficiency of Terra and Luna
Faster vulnerability discovery and remediation

Concerns

End-to-end exploit chains still hard to build
Disappointing that most can't use it yet
Is the government-approval process sustainable?

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