U.S. Department of Energy Buys Helium-3 from U.S. Space Resources Company Interlune in Historic Agreement

Event is the First-Ever Government Purchase of a Natural Resource from Space

SEATTLE - May 7, 2025 - Interlune, a natural resources company, today announced that the U.S. Department of Energy Isotope Program (DOE IP) has agreed to purchase three liters of helium-3 harvested from the Moon for delivery on Earth at approximately today’s commercial market price. The delivery date is no later than April 2029.

The agreement marks the first DOE Isotope Program purchase of a non-terrestrial natural resource. Interlune will harvest the helium-3 from the lunar soil, or regolith, and return it to Earth for the DOE IP and other customers using the fully operational infrastructure of its pilot plant on the Moon’s surface.

A rendering of a rocket with a capsule containing helium-3 being returned to Earth from the lunar surface.

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 addressed a severe shortage around 2010. The isotope is used in applications such as weapons detection in national security, cooling systems necessary for quantum computing, medical imaging, and developing clean fusion energy.

Helium-3 is produced naturally in the Sun and is carried through space via the solar wind. The solar wind is implanted on the Moon, while the Earth is protected by its magnetosphere, which deflects the solar wind.

“This inaugural purchase of lunar helium-3 from Interlune demonstrates the crucial need for a larger supply of this resource here on Earth,” said Rob Meyerson, co-founder and CEO of Interlune. “We look forward to continued collaboration with the DOE IP and other government agencies to incentivize Interlune and other companies to provide key isotopes for our nation and to create a long-term in-space economy.”

Three liters of helium-3 is a sizable enough quantity to require extracting and separating it from the regolith while on the Moon instead of transporting the regolith back to Earth for processing here. To extract three liters of helium-3, Interlune will have to process enough lunar regolith to fill a large backyard swimming pool.

“This amount is too large to return to Earth,” added Meyerson. “Processing this amount of regolith requires us to demonstrate our operations at a useful scale on the Moon.”

While the Interlune business plan is initially focused on transporting lunar helium-3 back to Earth for government and commercial customers, in the future, it will also provide other lunar-derived resources for use in space to advance further space exploration.

“With this agreement, the DOE IP is signaling to companies and investors that it supports novel approaches to securing critical materials for use on Earth, including space resources,” continued Meyerson.

The Interlune harvesting system includes novel technologies for excavating, sorting, extracting, and separating industrial quantities of helium-3 and other resources from lunar soil or 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.

Earlier this year, Interlune came out of stealth and announced $18 million in seed funding. Last Fall, Interlune announced a research grant from the DOE IP to study novel technologies to separate helium-3 from domestic helium supplies using extremely cold temperatures. The company will also leverage findings from this project to support its lunar helium-3 extraction plans.

In addition to the DOE IP research grant, the company received a NASA TechFlights grant to advance its proprietary technology to process lunar soil and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I award to develop technology to sort lunar regolith. The company is planning several missions to the Moon later this decade.

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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 harvests materials from the lunar soil, or regolith, using the smallest, most energy-efficient machinery of its kind. 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. Follow Interlune on LinkedIn, X, and Instagram.

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