Updated: 2 hours agoAn artist’s rendering shows what Interlune’s Helium-3 harvester might look like on the surface of the moon. The company hopes to become the first private venture to extract resources from the lunar surface and return them to Earth.
Earlier this year, two commercial spacecraft attempted to land on the moon as part of a NASA program designed to carry instruments and experiments to the lunar surface, and eventually cargo and rovers. The first attempt, by Astrobotic, a Pittsburgh-based company, suffered a fuel leak and never made it to the moon. The second, by Houston-based Intuitive machines, did land on the moon, but came in too fast and tipped over.
In a tweet, then-NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote that the agency wanted “to establish the regulatory certainty to extract and trade space resources.” If that goes as planned, the company hopes to launch another mission in 2028 that would be an “end-to-end demonstration of the entire operation,” Lai said. That would entail flying a harvester to the moon, which would scoop up the regolith, then its processor would separate out the Helium-3. A small quantity would return to and be put “into the hands of the customer.” By 2030, the company intends to conduct full-scale operations.
Interlune has developed an extraction technology that is small, light and doesn’t require an enormous amount of power, he said, making it easier to transport to the moon and operate there. The company’s funding round was led by the venture capital firm Seven Seven Six, whose founder and general partner, Alexis Ohanian, said that the space sector has become far more appealing to investors. “The space economy is something we can actually talk about with a straight face now, and I think some of the smartest people on the planet are making those efforts,” he said.