The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Metal Tech News - July 17, 2024
Due to the Moon's lack of atmosphere, large quantities of helium-3 delivered by solar winds have amassed in lunar regolith.
In February, aerospace engineering student and former Interlune intern Maia Willebrand helped test an early prototype of Interlune beneficiation and extraction hardware on a parabolic flight.
Interlune, a Seattle-based space mining tech startup led by a team of seasoned space exploration executives, has been awarded a $348,000 grant from NASA to advance a proprietary technology designed to recover helium-3 and other minerals from the Moon.
"This award is one more step toward our goal of rebuilding the entire U.S. industrial base for lunar exploration," said Interlune CEO Rob Meyerson.
The grant was awarded through TechFlights, a NASA initiative focused on advancing technologies that align with the United States' space exploration priorities and the expanding space economy.
The Interlune executive team is stacked with space exploration and economy pioneers. Meyerson is the former president of Blue Origin, the space firm founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos. He is joined by CTO Gary Lai, who previously served as Blue Origin's Chief Architect; COO Indra Hornsby, former COO of EOI Space; Head of Product James Antifaev, former director of emerging markets at Spaceflight; and Harrison Schmitt, a geologist who flew to the Moon aboard Apollo 17.
Interlune's proprietary technology for mining and extracting valuable elements needed on Earth and for future bases on the Moon is also an ideal match for TechFlights' overarching mission.
Interlune aims to be the first company to commercialize natural resources from space, starting with helium-3 from the lunar regolith, which is the rock, gravel, sand, and dust on the Moon's surface.
Helium-3, which is rare on Earth but abundant on the Moon, is an ideal non-radioactive fuel for fusion reactors to generate electricity and power spacecraft. This stable isotope of helium can also be used to increase the accuracy of quantum computers by cooling them to near absolute zero and for MRI machines that can image lungs in much greater detail without exposing patients to additional radiation.
Interlune plans to sell the helium-3 it mines on the Moon to commercial and government clients for quantum computing, national security, medical imaging, and fusion energy markets.
Once it has established a helium-3 business, the space tech company plans to use the same technology to extract industrial metals, rare earths, water, and other elements that will be needed to support permanent outposts on the Moon and a robust in-space economy.
In February, aerospace engineering student and former Interlune intern Maia Willebrand helped test an early prototype of Interlune beneficiation and extraction hardware on a parabolic flight.
Interlune says the proprietary technology it has developed to harvest valuable resources from the Moon's surface is smaller, lighter, and requires less energy to operate than other state-of-the-art equipment available. This translates to lower costs to get the harvester to the Moon and then to operate it once it gets there.
"For the first time in history, harvesting natural resources from the Moon is technologically and economically feasible," said Meyerson.
The grant from NASA's TechFlights will be used to test Interlude's beneficiation technology, which is a process of treating regolith in preparation for extracting the targeted resources in a simulated lunar environment.
This includes tests carried out during parabolic flights, which can simulate the low-gravity conditions in which the harvester will be operating on the Moon. During these tests, tradeoffs in size, weight, and power required for different levels of performance will be analyzed.
Interlune will use the data gathered from the NASA-supported testing to scale up its technology to handle multiple tons of lunar regolith as it advances a technology that could be foundational to a future space economy.
"We are writing a new playbook for how public-private partnerships can deliver world-changing innovation to benefit all," said Meyerson.
With more than 16 years of covering mining, Shane is renowned for his insights and and in-depth analysis of mining, mineral exploration and technology metals.
Reader Comments(0)