Interlune Corporation: Company Overview
1. Executive Summary
Interlune Corporation is an American space resources and infrastructure company headquartered in the Seattle, Washington area, with specialized research and testing facilities in Houston, Texas. Founded in 2020 by former Blue Origin executives Rob Meyerson and Gary Lai, alongside Apollo 17 astronaut and lunar geologist Harrison H. Schmitt, Interlune aims to build the industrial backbone for an in-space economy.
The company's primary objective is to commercialize natural resources extracted from space, beginning with the extraction and terrestrial return of Helium-3 (He-3) from lunar regolith. In subsequent phases, Interlune plans to harvest other vital space resources, including industrial metals, rare earth elements, oxygen, and water, to support long-term lunar infrastructure, commercial off-world manufacturing, and in-space propellant production.
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2. Core Activities and Operational Focus
Interlune operates across several primary domains:
- Resource Harvesting and Refining: Developing lightweight, low-power continuous processing machinery to excavate lunar regolith, sort particles, extract trapped volatile gases, and separate high-value isotopes.
- Heavy Industrial Space Hardware: Partnering with industrial equipment manufacturers (such as Vermeer Corporation) to engineer robust, autonomous machinery capable of planetary civil engineering and regolith excavation.
- Terrestrial Verification and Simulant Testing: Operating the Houston-based Interlune Research Lab (IRL) to test excavation, gas handling, and thermal mitigation mechanisms under simulated lunar gravity and vacuum conditions.
- Earth-Return Logistics: Designing dedicated cargo return systems and entry capsules to safely deliver harvested lunar products back to Earth for commercial and governmental distribution.
- Terrestrial Isotope Separation: Developing high-efficiency separation systems (such as Cold Capture) to extract trace Helium-3 from terrestrial helium sources to serve near-term market demand ahead of full-scale lunar returns.
3. Products and Services
A. Lunar Resource Products
- Helium-3 (He-3) Supply:
Interlune contracts to supply bulk Helium-3 gas harvested from lunar soil. Helium-3 is deposited on the lunar surface via solar winds over billions of years and is virtually nonexistent in natural reservoirs on Earth.
- Future Lunar Materials:
Roadmap products include processed lunar oxygen, extracted water ice for life support and propellant, and refined structural metals (iron, titanium, aluminum, and silicon) for orbital and surface construction.
B. Core Hardware and Extraction Systems
- Lunar Regolith Harvester:
A mobile, high-throughput extraction platform designed to process high volumes of lunar regolith per hour. The system excavates surface regolith, sorts particles by size, applies thermal energy to release embedded volatile gases, and redeposits processed soil back onto the surface.
- Cryogenic Distillation and Gas Separation Units:
Specialized distillation units engineered to isolate Helium-3 from common Helium-4 and other volatile compounds released during thermal processing.
- Lunar Construction and Civil Earthmoving Machinery:
Co-developed surface machinery designed for site clearing, berm construction, regolith displacement, and landing pad preparation.
C. Extreme Environment Engineering and Testing Services
- Thermal Management Systems:
Advanced radiative thermal control systems built to manage extreme heat loads and continuous temperature swings on the lunar surface.
- Dust Mitigation Systems:
Mechanical, electrostatic, and material-based dust exclusion mechanisms designed to prevent lunar regolith from damaging moving parts, optical sensors, and seals.
- Ground-Based Simulant and Gravity Testing:
Proprietary testing environments utilizing specialized lunar regolith simulants and parabolic flight test rigs for space hardware qualification.
D. Logistics and Return Services
- Lunar Cargo Return System:
A dedicated transfer vehicle and atmospheric reentry capsule architecture designed to return high-value cargo from the lunar surface to Earth multiple times per year.
4. Key Target Markets and Applications
Interlune serves critical technological and industrial markets requiring rare isotopes:
- Quantum Computing:
Helium-3 is the essential working fluid for dilution refrigerators, cooling quantum processors down to sub-10 millikelvin temperatures to reduce thermal noise and preserve qubit coherence.
- National Security and Border Defense:
Helium-3 gas is utilized in neutron detectors deployed at international ports, border crossings, and critical infrastructure to identify illicit nuclear materials and radiation sources.
- Clean Energy and Advanced Fusion:
Helium-3 is considered an ideal fuel for aneutronic or low-neutron nuclear fusion reactions (Deuterium-Helium-3), yielding high energy output with significantly reduced radioactive waste compared to Deuterium-Tritium systems.
- Medical Diagnostic Imaging:
Hyperpolarized Helium-3 Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) provides high-resolution ventilation imaging of human lungs to diagnose and monitor chronic respiratory conditions like asthma, COPD, and cystic fibrosis without exposing patients to ionizing radiation.
