Space Resources Startup to Advance its
Proprietary Technology to Harvest Natural Resources from
Space and Support a Sustainable Lunar Presence
SEATTLE, July 16,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Interlune, a natural resources
company, today announced that it received a grant through NASA's
TechFlights solicitation to advance its proprietary technology to
beneficiate lunar soil, or regolith. Beneficiation is the process
of taking a raw material (in this case, lunar regolith) and
improving its chemical and physical properties in preparation for
extracting valuable resources from it. Lunar regolith beneficiation
is strategically important for use in rocket propulsion,
construction, life support, and other activities that support a
long-term presence on the Moon.
"We are writing a new playbook for how public-private
partnerships can deliver world-changing innovation to benefit all,"
said Rob Meyerson, Interlune
co-founder and CEO. "This award is one more step toward our goal of
rebuilding the entire U.S. industrial base for lunar
exploration."
Interlune aims to be the first company to commercialize natural
resources from space, starting with Helium-3 from the Moon, which
it will sell to commercial and government customers in quantum
computing, national security, medical imaging, and fusion energy
markets.
Technology need
Currently, the state-of-the-art for extracting valuable
resources from lunar regolith requires excessive amounts of energy,
a scarce resource on the Moon. NASA's Space Technology Mission
Directorate (STMD) outlines the need for in-situ resource
utilization (ISRU) for construction, advanced manufacturing, and
production of fluids and gases for propellant and life support.
Interlune solution
Interlune's core intellectual property includes novel
technologies for the excavation, beneficiation, and other
processing of industrial quantities of regolith to extract valuable
resources. 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.
Interlune will use this TechFlights grant to test its
beneficiation technology in a simulated lunar environment,
including regolith simulants in a vacuum and lunar environment. The
tests will analyze tradeoffs in size, weight, and power required
for different levels of performance using parabolic flights.
Interlune will use the results to plan for scaling its technology
to handle multiple tons of regolith.
Company progress
In March of this year, Interlune announced $18 million in seed funding, the most recent
round led by Alexis Ohanian's
venture firm Seven Seven Six. In 2023, the company received a
National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation
Research (SBIR) Phase I award to operationalize technology to size
and sort lunar regolith.
About Interlune
Interlune is a privately funded
natural resources company committed to sustainable and responsible
harvesting of natural resources from space to benefit humanity.
Based in Seattle, Interlune was
founded in 2020 by a team of highly experienced government and
industry experts. Aiming to be the first U.S. company to
commercialize resources from space, Interlune has developed
patent-pending technology that extracts materials from the lunar
soil, or regolith, using the smallest, most energy-efficient
machinery ever conceived. Ultimately, Interlune will offer these
valuable resources to commercial and government customers on Earth
and establish an in-space economy using the resources on the Moon
and beyond.
Media contact: interlune@perchpartners.com
View original content to download
multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/interlune-receives-grant-to-test-state-of-the-art-lunar-soil-processing-technology-302198243.html
SOURCE Interlune