The three models required government approval before release.
OpenAI is set to launch its three models—Sol, Luna, and Terra—on Thursday, July 9, as announced on the platform X. The company stated, “We’re expanding preview access globally now.” Initially, these models were made available to a limited group of trusted partners in late June following an order from the Trump administration.
As a reminder, President Trump signed an AI cybersecurity directive in early June requiring companies to voluntarily submit their most advanced models for government review 30 days prior to public release. Consequently, the first rollout of the GPT-5.6 models was limited to select government-approved organizations. While OpenAI noted that such a government review process should not be the norm, it complied in order to expedite access to the new model series for the wider public.
In an unexpected move, OpenAI will offer broader access to GPT-5.6 within a much shorter timeframe than the stipulated 30 days. Reports indicate that the Trump administration facilitated this accelerated rollout after further evaluating the model and holding additional discussions with OpenAI. The Department of Commerce’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation was responsible for conducting these evaluations, while OpenAI’s technical team provided immediate responses to any inquiries in Washington, D.C.
The GPT-5.6 series is divided into three variants, with Sol being the most powerful. Terra is designed for everyday tasks, delivering performance comparable to GPT-5.5 at half the cost, while Luna is the budget-friendly option. The pricing structure for Sol is $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output tokens, while Terra costs $2.50 per million input tokens and $15 for output. Luna is priced at $1 per million input tokens and $6 for output.
Similarly, Anthropic was required to suspend all access to its latest Mythos cybersecurity and Fable models to meet compliance regulations due to government mandates aimed at preventing foreign access. Recently, the company received approval to reintroduce the exclusive Mythos 5 model, with plans to eventually deploy its public counterpart, Fable 5.
