Interlune, a natural resources company, announced that it has been awarded up to $4.84 million in a grant from the Texas Space Commission (TSC) to develop and test highly specialized simulants of Moon dirt, or regolith. Interlune will use the grant funds, along with internal investment, to create a Lunar Regolith Simulant Center of Excellence near NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Simulated lunar regolith is crucial to testing technology and equipment being developed by myriad companies and government agencies, including instruments, landers, rovers, and other equipment.
"Lunar regolith is different from dirt here on Earth, so a highest-fidelity testing environment on Earth is of tremendous value to Interlune and the entire lunar exploration community," said Rob Meyerson, Interlune cofounder and CEO. "This support from the Texas Space Commission to develop novel lunar regolith simulants will create a massive U.S. advantage in space innovation."
Interlune Chief Scientist Dr. Elizabeth Frank will lead the work at the center, supported by a Texas-based team. By developing, producing, and scaling advanced lunar regolith simulants, Interlune will create precise testing environments for its proprietary system to harvest natural resources from space, starting with helium-3 from the Moon. The company will make these simulants available to other companies, research institutions, and government organizations.
The grant originates from the TSC's Space Exploration and Aeronautics Research Fund (SEARF), which provides funding to businesses, nonprofits, and governmental entities engaged in space exploration research or aeronautics. The funds granted will support workforce development in Texas by expanding Interlune operations and creating additional infrastructure to strengthen the state's aerospace economy. Interlune intends to provide internship opportunities once the center has been established.
The Interlune harvesting system includes novel technologies for excavating, sorting, extracting, and separating industrial quantities of helium-3 and other resources from lunar regolith. Its harvester is smaller, lighter, and requires less power than other industry concepts, making it less expensive to transport to the Moon and operate once it's there. The company is planning several missions to the Moon this decade.
Helium-3, an isotope of helium, is extremely scarce on Earth but abundant on the Moon. Government and industry have been looking for a new and scalable source of helium-3 since the U.S. government identified a severe shortage around 2010. The isotope is used in applications such as weapons detection in national security, medical imaging, and developing clean fusion energy. The strongest current demand is from the quantum computing industry, which uses dilution refrigerators to cool superconducting quantum computers to the near-absolute zero temperatures needed to operate.
Interlune has raised $18 million in venture capital seed funding and has binding contracts with buyers of helium-3 for delivery on Earth beginning in 2029. In addition to this grant from the Texas Space Commission, the company has received grants from the Department of Energy Isotope Program, NASA, and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I award.
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