Interlune: Pioneering the Commercialization of Lunar Resources

The Dawn of a Lunar Economy

A new era in the human relationship with space is beginning, one defined not just by exploration and discovery, but by commerce. At the forefront of this shift is Interlune, a company positioning itself not as a traditional aerospace firm, but as a natural resources company operating on the ultimate frontier: the Moon. For the first time in history, the convergence of pressing terrestrial resource demands and rapid advancements in space technology has made the prospect of harvesting materials from the Moon both technologically and economically feasible.

Interlune’s mission is to be the first enterprise to successfully commercialize resources extracted from space. The company’s initial focus is on harvesting helium-3, a rare and valuable isotope, from the lunar soil and returning it to Earth. While helium-3 is the immediate goal, the company’s long-term vision is far broader. It plans to eventually harvest other materials, such as industrial metals, rare Earth elements, and water ice. These resources would not only serve markets on Earth but would also form the foundation of a robust in-space economy, supporting a sustained human presence on the Moon and enabling further exploration of the solar system.

The emergence of a company like Interlune signals a paradigm shift. Historically, space activities created value through services performed in orbit, like satellite communications, or through scientific data sent back from distant probes. Interlune’s business model is fundamentally different. It is centered on the physical extraction, processing, and transportation of a tangible commodity from one celestial body to another for sale in terrestrial markets. This approach mirrors the operational logic of terrestrial mining and energy industries, but applies it to an entirely new domain.

Corporate Profile and Strategic Vision

Mission and Philosophy

Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Interlune has established a clear mission: to lead the world in the sustainable and responsible harvesting of natural resources from space. This mission is built on a philosophy that balances ambitious commercial goals with a commitment to environmental stewardship on the Moon. The company’s operational plans reflect this dual focus. For instance, its harvesting process is designed to deposit the processed lunar soil, or regolith, back onto the surface, leaving the landscape in a state described as being like a tilled field. This approach is intended to minimize the long-term visual and physical disruption of the lunar environment.

Internally, the company fosters a corporate culture that values transparency, active collaboration, and a focus on delivering tangible results. This ethos is designed to support a complex, long-term endeavor that requires a blend of innovation, discipline, and resilience.

Leadership and Expertise

Perhaps Interlune’s most significant strategic asset is the depth and breadth of experience embodied in its leadership team. The company was founded by a trio of figures whose careers span the entire history of modern spaceflight, from the Apollo program to the vanguard of the commercial space revolution. CEO Rob Meyerson previously served as the President of Blue Origin, where he guided the company’s growth over fifteen years from a small research group into a major launch provider. He is joined by Chief Technology Officer Gary Lai, the former Chief Architect at Blue Origin and the leader of the New Shepard suborbital vehicle program. Providing scientific credibility and historical perspective is Executive Chairman Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, the only geologist to have walked on the Moon as an astronaut on the Apollo 17 mission. His advocacy for lunar helium-3 extraction dates back to research projects in the 1980s, giving the company a direct link to the earliest scientific justifications for its mission.

This founding group is complemented by a team of seasoned executives from the commercial space and technology sectors. Chief Operating Officer Indra Hornsby brings extensive operational and legal expertise from her senior roles at Rocket Lab, BlackSky, and MDA Space. The team is rounded out by Head of Product James Antifaev, who contributes experience in business development and product-market fit from his time at innovative firms like Maxar and Google.

Financial Foundation

Interlune has secured a robust financial base through a strategic combination of private venture capital and competitive government grants. This hybrid funding model serves to validate the company’s business plan from both the commercial market and public institutions. The company has raised approximately $18 million in seed capital. This includes an early seed round of $1.85 million in 2022, followed by a larger round of $17.7 million in 2024. The most recent funding was led by the venture firm Seven Seven Six, with participation from other notable investors such as Aurelia Foundry, Gaingels, Liquid 2 Ventures, and Shasta Ventures.

In parallel with its private fundraising, Interlune has successfully competed for and won several government grants that support key aspects of its technology development. These awards provide non-dilutive capital and lend further credibility to the company’s technical approach. The grants include:

• A U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grant to research novel technologies for separating helium-3 from terrestrial helium supplies using cryogenic processes.
• A NASA TechFlights grant to advance its proprietary technology for processing lunar soil.
• A National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award to develop its unique technology for sorting lunar regolith.
• A grant of up to $4.84 million from the Texas Space Commission to establish a center of excellence focused on simulated moon dirt at the Texas A&M University Space Institute.

This diversified funding strategy allows Interlune to advance multiple parallel research and development tracks, de-risking its technology roadmap while preserving equity for future growth.

The Helium-3 Market: Fueling Future Technologies

What is Helium-3?

The resource at the heart of Interlune’s business plan is helium-3, often abbreviated as He-3. It is a light, stable, and non-radioactive isotope of the element helium. Its origin story is cosmic: helium-3 is produced in the nuclear fusion reactions that power the Sun and is then carried across the solar system embedded in the solar wind, a constant stream of charged particles.

While the solar wind continuously bombards the entire solar system, Earth’s powerful magnetic field acts as a shield, deflecting most of these particles. As a result, helium-3 is exceptionally scarce on our planet. The limited terrestrial supply is primarily obtained as a byproduct of the radioactive decay of tritium, a material used in nuclear weapons programs. Since the end of the Cold War and the subsequent dismantling of nuclear arsenals, the production of new tritium has dwindled, leading to a steady decline in the availability of helium-3. This culminated in a severe supply shortage around 2010, creating a pressing need for a new, scalable source.

The Moon has no global magnetic field and a negligible atmosphere. For billions of years, its surface has been directly exposed to the solar wind, allowing helium-3 to become embedded in the top layers of its soil and rock, known as regolith. While the concentrations are still low, the sheer volume of regolith makes the Moon the most abundant known source of helium-3 in the inner solar system. Interlune’s mission is to tap this extraterrestrial reservoir to solve a terrestrial supply problem.

High-Value Applications

The intense interest in securing a stable supply of helium-3 is driven by its unique properties, which make it an essential, and often irreplaceable, component in several of the world’s most advanced and rapidly growing technology sectors. The demand is not speculative; it is rooted in the fundamental physics of cutting-edge applications.

• Quantum Computing: This is perhaps the most urgent driver of demand. Quantum computers rely on maintaining the fragile quantum states of their basic information units, or “qubits.” To prevent these states from collapsing due to thermal noise, the processors must be cooled to temperatures near absolute zero—often below 10 millikelvins, which is hundreds of times colder than deep space. The primary technology used to achieve these extreme temperatures is the dilution refrigerator, a complex cryogenic device for which helium-3 is an essential working fluid. Current refrigerators use a few dozen liters of helium-3, but as the quantum computing industry scales from a few hundred machines worldwide to thousands or tens of thousands, the demand for helium-3 is projected to grow exponentially, with future systems potentially requiring hundreds or even thousands of liters each.
• National Security: Helium-3 plays a critical role in national security, particularly in the detection of nuclear materials. It is the most effective substance known for detecting neutrons, which are a key signature of fissile materials like plutonium. Neutron detectors filled with helium-3 are deployed at borders, ports, and other strategic locations to screen for smuggled nuclear weapons or radiological materials. Demand for these devices surged in the early 2000s and remains a key component of global security infrastructure.
• Medical Imaging: In the medical field, helium-3 is used as a specialized contrast agent for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). When hyperpolarized, the gas can be inhaled by a patient, allowing for exceptionally high-resolution images of the lungs. This technique provides a detailed view of lung function and structure that is not possible with conventional MRI, offering significant diagnostic advantages for conditions like Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and asthma.
• Clean Energy: Looking further ahead, helium-3 is considered a prime fuel candidate for the future of clean energy: aneutronic nuclear fusion. Unlike the fusion reactions being pursued in most current experimental reactors, which produce high-energy neutrons that make reactor components radioactive, the fusion of helium-3 with deuterium produces energy primarily in the form of charged particles. This dramatically reduces radioactive waste and simplifies reactor design, offering a pathway to a cleaner and safer form of fusion power. Several private fusion companies, such as Helion Energy, are actively developing reactor designs based on this fuel cycle.

Market Dynamics

The combination of scarcity and demand has created a small but growing market for helium-3. The helium-3 market size was estimated at US$320 million in 2024. The helium-3 Industry is expected to grow from US$400 million in 2025 to US$2.65 billion by 2034. The helium-3 market CAGR (growth rate) is expected to be around 23.50% during the forecast period (2025 – 2034).

The price of helium-3 reflects its rarity. Market reports from 2024 and 2025 place the commercial price at approximately $2,500 to $3,000 per liter. Interlune has publicly valued the resource even higher in the context of its business model, pegging the price at around $20 million per kilogram. This high price point is the economic cornerstone of the company’s venture; it is what makes the immense cost and complexity of a lunar mining operation potentially profitable.

The success of Interlune is not solely dependent on its own technological execution. It is intrinsically linked to the growth trajectories of other frontier technologies. As fields like quantum computing and fusion energy transition from the research lab to commercial deployment, the demand for helium-3 is set to intensify. This creates a market pull that strengthens the business case for Interlune’s high-risk, high-capital endeavor. The company’s first commercial contract with Maybell Quantum, a key supplier to the quantum industry, is a manifestation of this dynamic. Investors in Interlune are not just betting on a single mining company; they are making a calculated investment in the enabling infrastructure for a whole ecosystem of next-generation technologies. The interconnectedness of these emerging fields means that a breakthrough in one area—such as the development and deployment of large-scale quantum computers—will directly increase the value and urgency of Interlune’s mission.

The Interlune Harvester: Technology and Operations

Interlune’s approach to lunar mining is centered on a fully integrated, robotic system known as the Harvester. This machine is designed to perform all the necessary steps of resource extraction on the Moon, from digging up the soil to separating the final product.

The entire system is designed to be 100% robotic and to operate with a high degree of autonomy, requiring only remote monitoring and intervention from human operators on Earth. To navigate the lunar surface, the Harvester will use a suite of vision sensors and ground-penetrating radar to plan the most efficient harvesting route. It will also be equipped with a robotic arm capable of moving surface rocks that are too large for the main processor to ingest.

The first and most physically impressive component of the Harvester is its excavation system. Recognizing the immense challenge of designing machinery for an extraterrestrial environment, Interlune formed a strategic partnership with Vermeer Corporation, an Iowa-based industrial equipment manufacturer with over 75 years of experience in building heavy machinery for mining, agriculture, and construction.

This collaboration has already yielded tangible results. After successfully testing a sub-scale version in the summer of 2024, the partners unveiled a full-scale prototype of the lunar excavator in May 2025. This machine is engineered to meet the demanding requirements of lunar mining, with a target of ingesting 100 metric tons of regolith per hour.

The design of the excavator incorporates several key innovations tailored for the Moon. Unlike terrestrial bucket-wheel excavators that often stop and start, the Interlune system operates in a continuous motion, processing the regolith as it moves. This approach significantly improves efficiency and reduces power consumption. The design also focuses on minimizing the tractive force required to move the machine and on reducing the amount of abrasive lunar dust kicked up during operation—a critical factor for ensuring the longevity of the equipment. This excavation hardware will ultimately be integrated into the final, mobile Interlune Harvester platform.

Processing and Separation on the Moon

A cornerstone of Interlune’s economic strategy is the decision to process the regolith and separate the helium-3 directly on the Moon. The concentration of helium-3 in the lunar soil is extremely low—measured in parts per billion. To obtain just three liters of the gas, a volume equivalent to a large backyard swimming pool of regolith must be processed. Transporting this enormous mass of raw material back to Earth for processing would be prohibitively expensive. Therefore, on-site processing is not just an optimization; it is an absolute necessity for the business model to be viable.

After the regolith is excavated, it enters the sorting stage. Interlune has developed a proprietary sorting technology that uses centrifugal motion to rapidly separate the regolith particles by size. This system is more mass-efficient and reliable than terrestrial gravity-based sorters and has the added benefit of being testable on Earth without the need for complex gravity-simulation, as the primary sorting force is centrifugal. This technology has been tested in simulated lunar gravity aboard parabolic flights.

Once sorted, the fine-grained material is heated to a temperature between 700 and 900 degrees Celsius. This heating process releases the gases that have been trapped within the regolith particles for eons, including helium-3, hydrogen, other forms of helium, and nitrogen.

The final step is to separate the valuable helium-3 from this mixture of gases. Interlune is developing this proprietary separation technology at its cryogenic laboratory in Seattle. This work is supported in part by a research grant from the Department of Energy, which is focused on pioneering new methods to separate helium-3 from domestic helium supplies on Earth using extremely cold temperatures. The findings from this terrestrial research will be directly leveraged to perfect the lunar separation process.

Operational Challenges

The ambition of Interlune’s plans is matched only by the scale of the engineering and environmental challenges it must overcome. Operating complex, robotic machinery on the Moon is one of the most difficult tasks imaginable, and the environment presents a host of problems that have been well-documented by past and recent lunar missions.

• Low Gravity: The Moon’s gravity is only one-sixth that of Earth’s. This makes excavation incredibly difficult, as machinery has significantly less weight to leverage when applying digging force to the ground. Interlune’s continuous-motion design is one attempt to mitigate this fundamental physics problem.
• Extreme Temperatures: The lunar surface experiences large temperature swings, from over 110°C (230°F) in direct sunlight to as low as -170°C (-274°F) in shadow or during the two-week lunar night. These extremes place enormous stress on all materials and components, and require sophisticated thermal management systems to prevent equipment from failing.
• Abrasive Dust: The lunar regolith is not like sand on Earth. It is composed of fine, sharp, glassy particles that are highly abrasive and electrostatically charged. This dust clings to everything and can infiltrate seals, damage moving parts, and degrade optical sensors. Interlune’s low-dust excavation design is a direct response to this pervasive threat.
• Lighting and Terrain: Near the lunar poles, where resources like water ice and potentially higher concentrations of helium-3 are thought to exist, the Sun is always low on the horizon. This creates long, deep shadows that can obscure hazards and make optical navigation extremely difficult. The heavily cratered and sloped terrain further complicates both landing and surface mobility, challenges that have been highlighted by the difficulties faced by several recent commercial lunar landers.

Strategic Alliances and Commercial Traction

Interlune has pursued a deliberate strategy of building credibility and de-risking its ambitious venture through a series of key partnerships and foundational contracts. In a coordinated series of announcements in May 2025, the company revealed a multi-pronged approach that simultaneously addressed the primary technical, political, and commercial questions facing its business.

The Vermeer Partnership: Bridging Two Worlds

The first pillar of this strategy is technical validation, achieved through a strategic alliance with Vermeer Corporation. This partnership bridges the gap between the futuristic world of space exploration and the grounded reality of terrestrial heavy industry. Vermeer, a globally recognized manufacturer of industrial and agricultural equipment with over 75 years of experience, brings a legacy of engineering excellence and manufacturing prowess to the project.

Under a joint development agreement, the two companies are collaborating on novel excavation equipment designed for use in space. The full-scale lunar excavator prototype unveiled in 2025 is the first major product of this partnership. The alliance is further solidified by the appointment of Vermeer’s CEO, Jason Andringa, to Interlune’s advisory board, signaling a deep and long-term commitment from the industrial giant. This partnership provides Interlune with more than just hardware; it lends the venture a level of industrial credibility that would be difficult for a startup to achieve on its own. It sends a clear message that the technology is not just a concept, but a real piece of machinery being built by one of the world’s leading experts in the field.

Government Validation: The Department of Energy Contract

The second pillar of the strategy addresses political and market risk through a historic agreement with the U.S. government. Interlune has signed a contract with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Isotope Program (DOE IP) for the purchase of helium-3 harvested from the Moon. This agreement is a landmark event, marking the first-ever government purchase of a non-terrestrial natural resource.

Under the terms of the contract, Interlune will deliver three liters of lunar-sourced helium-3 to the DOE no later than April 2029. The sale will be conducted at a price point approximating the current commercial market rate. The significance of this contract extends far beyond its monetary value. It serves as a powerful de-risking signal to the entire market. The agreement demonstrates that the U.S. government not only supports the concept of space resource utilization but is willing to become a foundational customer. This act of public procurement validates Interlune’s business model at the highest level and is explicitly intended to incentivize further private investment in the emerging space resources sector.

Commercial Validation: The Maybell Quantum Agreement

The third pillar of the strategy provides crucial commercial validation, demonstrating that tangible market demand exists outside of government programs. Interlune announced that Maybell Quantum, a leading quantum infrastructure company, has become its first commercial customer. This agreement directly links Interlune’s supply to the rapidly growing quantum computing industry, one of the key end-users for helium-3.

The agreement calls for Interlune to supply thousands of liters of helium-3 to Maybell Quantum annually for a period of six years, from 2029 to 2035. Maybell will use the helium-3 in its state-of-the-art dilution refrigerators, which are essential for cooling quantum processors to their operational temperatures. The partnership is a natural fit, as Maybell itself is known for innovation in efficiency, developing cryogenic systems that support more qubits in a smaller physical footprint. This contract demonstrates real private sector demand, secures a long-term revenue stream for Interlune, and validates the company’s role as a critical supplier to a high-growth technology market.

By announcing the Vermeer prototype, the DOE contract, and the Maybell deal simultaneously, Interlune effectively addressed the three primary sources of skepticism for a venture of its kind in a single, powerful stroke. The hardware prototype addressed the technical risk (“Can it be built?”). The government contract addressed the political and initial market risk (“Will it be allowed, and who will buy it first?”). The commercial contract addressed the long-term market risk (“Is there a real, sustainable private market?”).

Mission Roadmap: From Prospecting to Production

Interlune has outlined a pragmatic and methodical roadmap for its lunar operations, progressing in a series of carefully planned phases from initial prospecting to full-scale production. This step-by-step approach is designed to systematically reduce risk, validate technology, and build operational experience before committing to the immense capital expenditure of a permanent lunar plant.

A Phased Approach to Lunar Operations

The company’s plan involves three distinct precursor missions leading up to full commercial operations, each with a specific set of objectives. This “crawl, walk, run” strategy ensures that each successive mission builds upon the data and experience gained from the last.

• Mission 1: Crescent Moon (Target Year: 2025): The first step is to conduct initial prospecting from orbit. This mission will involve sending a hyperspectral camera to the lunar south pole as a rideshare payload on another lunar mission. The camera’s objective is to map the lunar surface and identify regions with the highest concentrations of helium-3, allowing the company to select the most promising sites for future surface missions.
• Mission 2: Prospect Moon (Target Year: 2027): Following the orbital survey, Interlune plans a dedicated resource development mission. This will involve landing a spacecraft at one of the high-priority sites identified by the Crescent Moon mission. The lander will carry a suite of advanced sensors to take on-site measurements and validate the helium-3 concentrations in the regolith. It will also deploy technology demonstration hardware to conduct small-scale tests of the company’s proprietary extraction methods, proving out the core concepts of its harvesting system in the actual lunar environment.
• Mission 3: Harvest Moon (Target Year: 2029): This mission represents the culmination of the development phase: an end-to-end demonstration of the entire operational cycle. Interlune plans to deploy a pilot plant on the lunar surface, which will include the full Harvester system. This plant will perform the complete four-step process of excavation, sorting, extraction, and separation. The mission’s ultimate goal is to successfully harvest a meaningful quantity of helium-3 and return it to Earth, fulfilling the terms of its foundational contract with the Department of Energy.
• Full Operations (Target Year: Early 2030s): With the technology and processes validated by the Harvest Moon mission, Interlune aims to establish a fully operational and permanent plant on the Moon. This will mark the beginning of large-scale commercial deliveries to customers on Earth, including the fulfillment of its long-term supply agreement with Maybell Quantum.

Alignment with the Broader Space Ecosystem

Interlune’s business model is a prime example of a new paradigm in the space industry, where specialized companies focus on their core competencies while leveraging a broader ecosystem of shared infrastructure. The company’s roadmap is not planned in a vacuum; it is strategically designed to take advantage of the rapidly growing commercial space sector, particularly the transportation services fostered by government initiatives.

Instead of taking on the immense cost and complexity of developing its own rockets and landers, Interlune plans to operate as a customer of commercial launch and landing providers. This approach allows the company to focus its capital and engineering talent on what it does best: developing resource extraction and processing technology.

A key enabler of this strategy is NASA‘s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. CLPS was created to foster a commercial market for lunar delivery services, with NASA acting as an anchor customer to send its science and technology payloads to the Moon. Interlune explicitly plans to utilize these commercial landers, developed by a range of American companies, for its early missions. The 2027 Prospect Moon mission, for example, is slated to fly on a commercial lander procured through the CLPS initiative.

By “piggybacking” on this publicly sponsored infrastructure, Interlune offloads a significant portion of the transportation risk and cost. This is a pragmatic and symbiotic relationship: NASA achieves its goal of stimulating a commercial lunar economy and delivering its scientific instruments to the Moon, while Interlune gets a cost-effective ride to its prospective mining sites. For its later, heavier missions that will require deploying the full Harvester and returning processed materials, the company is closely watching the development of next-generation heavy-lift vehicles, such as SpaceX‘s Starship, which will be necessary to support an industrial-scale lunar operation. This model of specialized companies relying on a shared infrastructure layer, largely underwritten by government programs, is likely to be the dominant model for how space commerce operates in the future.

The Legal and Regulatory Frontier

While the technological and economic challenges of lunar mining are immense, they are matched by the complexity of the legal and regulatory landscape. Interlune and other companies in this nascent industry must navigate a framework of international treaties written during the Cold War, evolving national laws, and a new set of multilateral principles that are not yet universally accepted.

Governing the Commons: The Outer Space Treaty

The foundational legal document governing all activities in space is the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, commonly known as the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. Ratified by over 100 nations, including all major spacefaring powers, it establishes several core principles.

The most relevant and debated of these is Article II, which states that outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, “is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.” This provision creates a central ambiguity for resource extraction. Some nations, including Russia and China, have interpreted this article as a broad prohibition on any form of ownership of space resources, whether by a nation or a private entity.

Others, most notably the United States, have advanced a different interpretation. They argue that the prohibition on “national appropriation” refers to claims of sovereignty over territory, not to the extraction and ownership of resources. This view draws an analogy to established international law, such as fishing in international waters: no nation can claim ownership of the high seas, but a fishing vessel is entitled to own the fish it catches.

National Frameworks: The U.S. Approach

To provide legal certainty for its domestic industry, the United States moved to resolve this ambiguity through national legislation. In 2015, the U.S. Congress passed the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, often referred to as the SPACE Act. Title IV of this law, the Space Resource Exploration and Utilization Act, directly addresses the issue of resource rights.

The Act explicitly grants any U.S. citizen or company engaged in the commercial recovery of a space resource the right to “possess, own, transport, use, and sell” that resource. The law was carefully worded to assert these property rights for its citizens without making any claim of sovereignty over a celestial body, in an attempt to remain compliant with the letter of the Outer Space Treaty. This legislation was a direct result of lobbying efforts by early asteroid mining startups and created the domestic legal foundation upon which companies like Interlune can build their business models.

The Artemis Accords: Building International Norms

Recognizing that a domestic law has no standing internationally, the U.S. has since led a diplomatic effort to build a broad coalition of nations that share its interpretation of space law. This effort has taken the form of the Artemis Accords, a non-binding, multilateral set of principles for cooperation in the civil exploration and use of space.

Launched in 2020, the Accords are explicitly grounded in the Outer Space Treaty but seek to clarify how its principles should be applied to 21st-century activities. As of May 2025, 55 nations have signed on. Section 10 of the Accords, which covers space resources, is particularly significant. It affirms that the extraction of space resources “does not inherently constitute national appropriation under Article II of the Outer Space Treaty.”

The Artemis Accords represent a strategic attempt to establish a new international norm through “subsequent practice”—that is, by getting a critical mass of nations to agree on and act according to a shared interpretation, thereby making it the de facto standard. However, this approach has created a fractured legal landscape, as major spacefaring powers like Russia and China have not signed the Accords and continue to voice their opposition to the U.S.-led interpretation.

This places Interlune in a complex position. The company’s entire business model rests on a specific interpretation of a 60-year-old treaty that is not universally accepted. While U.S. law and the growing bloc of Artemis Accords signatories provide a strong and clear operational framework, the lack of a binding global consensus on resource ownership represents a significant long-term geopolitical risk. Interlune can operate with legal certainty under its domestic framework and among partner nations. However, in the event of a dispute or interference from a non-signatory nation, the path to resolution would be through the uncertain channels of international diplomacy, not through settled international law. The long-term security of Interlune’s venture is therefore intrinsically tied to the geopolitical success of the Artemis Accords in establishing its principles as the accepted global standard for space commerce.

The Competitive and Economic Landscape

Interlune is not operating in a vacuum. It is an early and prominent player in a nascent but growing industry focused on the commercialization of lunar resources. The company’s success will depend not only on its own execution but also on the development of the broader lunar economy and its ability to maintain a competitive edge.

The Nascent Lunar Mining Industry

While Interlune has established a strong early position, it faces competition from other entities with similar ambitions. The field is attracting both specialized startups and established industrial giants.

• Komatsu: A formidable competitor in the area of lunar hardware is the Japanese industrial conglomerate Komatsu. The company is actively developing its own line of lunar construction equipment, including an excavator designed for the lunar environment. Komatsu showcased a prototype at the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and is leveraging its deep expertise in robotics and automation, particularly through the use of “digital twin” technology to simulate and refine its designs. While Interlune’s partnership with Vermeer appears to have produced a more advanced full-scale prototype for excavation, Komatsu’s global scale and extensive R&D capabilities make it a significant long-term competitor, with a target of beginning operations in the early 2030s.
• Extraterrestrial Mining Company (XMC): Another startup with a direct focus on mining helium-3 is the Extraterrestrial Mining Company, or XMC. Also targeting an operational start in the 2029-2030 timeframe, XMC appears to be pursuing a different business model. Rather than developing all of its hardware in-house, it is positioning itself as a “development and finance platform,” aiming to orchestrate the various components of a mining operation by bringing together launch providers, equipment suppliers, and finance syndicates.
• Broader Lunar Ecosystem: Beyond direct competitors, a wider ecosystem of companies is emerging with a focus on other lunar resources and services. These include firms targeting the extraction of water ice, the generation of power on the lunar surface (Orbital Mining), and the use of regolith for construction (Ethos Space). Other well-known players in the lunar transportation and services market, such as iSpace and Moon Express, are also contributing to the development of the overall industrial base on which all lunar operations will depend.

The Broader Lunar Economy

The viability of any single lunar venture is tied to the health of the overall lunar economy. Current assessments of this emerging market are ambitious but tempered with caution. A widely cited 2021 report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) projected that the cumulative value of the lunar economy could reach approximately $170 billion by 2040. The largest segments of this market were forecast to be transportation to and from the Moon (around $100 billion) and resource utilization (around $63 billion).

However, more recent analyses suggest that the pace of commercial development has been slower than initially anticipated. Delays in key government programs like Artemis and a slowdown in private space investment have likely pushed these timelines to the right by five to ten years. For the near term, the lunar economy remains almost entirely dependent on government spending. The Artemis program and related initiatives represent an annual market of approximately $8-10 billion, which serves as the primary driver for all current commercial activity.

To accelerate the transition to a self-sustaining commercial ecosystem, government agencies like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have initiated programs such as the 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) study. This initiative aims to foster the development of an integrated, shareable lunar infrastructure for power, communications, and navigation, with the goal of enabling a thriving commercial economy on the Moon by 2035.

Economic Viability Analysis

The fundamental question for Interlune and its competitors is whether lunar mining can be a profitable enterprise. The economics are defined by a stark contrast between extremely high costs and potentially high revenues.

The primary justification for the venture is the exceptionally high value of helium-3. With a market price estimated at around $20 million per kilogram, it is widely considered to be the only lunar resource currently valuable enough to potentially close the business case for the immense cost of extraction and return to Earth.

However, the costs are staggering. The expense of launching hardware to the Moon is the single greatest barrier. Even with the falling launch prices offered by new vehicles, deploying the necessary industrial equipment—excavators, processing plants, power sources, and return vehicles—will be a multi-billion-dollar undertaking. This has led some analysts to remain skeptical, describing a truly commercial, revenue-generating lunar business as a “chimera” that has yet to be proven.

Interlune’s strategy appears to be a direct and calculated response to this economic reality. By focusing on helium-3, the company is pursuing an “anchor tenant” strategy for the lunar economy. It is targeting the one resource with a price point high enough to potentially justify the massive initial investment in infrastructure. The company’s long-term vision, which includes harvesting lower-value resources like water and industrial metals for in-space use, reveals a sophisticated two-phase plan.

Phase one involves mining high-value helium-3 and returning it to Earth to generate revenue and, ideally, achieve profitability. This initial business is intended to pay for the development and deployment of the foundational harvesting and transportation infrastructure. Phase two begins once that infrastructure is in place and its capital costs have been amortized. The same equipment can then be used to harvest lower-value resources, such as water ice, which can be sold in-space as rocket propellant to other lunar missions. This second market is not valuable enough to fund the initial setup on its own, but it becomes economically viable once the primary infrastructure is established. In this model, Interlune is not just a helium-3 company; it is using helium-3 as the economic wedge to build the first industrial base on the Moon, positioning itself to become the primary resource supplier for the entire future in-space economy.

Ethical and Environmental Considerations

The prospect of industrial-scale mining on the Moon opens a new chapter not only in commerce and technology but also in human responsibility. As humanity begins to extend its economic reach to another celestial body, it confronts a host of complex ethical and environmental questions that must be addressed to ensure that this new frontier is developed sustainably and equitably.

Preserving the Lunar Environment

The Moon is not a dead and unchanging rock; it is a unique and fragile environment that holds a 4.5-billion-year-old record of the solar system’s history. Industrial activities carry the risk of causing irreversible damage. Potential impacts include the visible scarring of the lunar surface from excavation, the widespread dispersal of abrasive dust that could interfere with scientific instruments and other equipment, and the disruption of the delicate physical and chemical balance of the lunar regolith.

The process of heating regolith to extract gases will release large quantities of water vapor, hydrogen, and other compounds into the Moon’s extremely thin atmosphere, or exosphere. The long-term effects of such releases are not fully understood, but it is theorized that these gases could be absorbed by the lunar crust, permanently altering its composition. Furthermore, unmanaged development could threaten areas of unique scientific, historical, or aesthetic value, such as the Apollo landing sites or pristine, permanently shadowed craters that may hold the key to understanding the origin of water in the inner solar system.

Interlune has publicly stated its commitment to responsible and sustainable harvesting. The company’s plan to redeposit the processed regolith and leave the surface in a “tilled” state is an early attempt to define what responsible lunar mining might look like. However, the effectiveness and long-term consequences of such remediation techniques are still unknown.

The Ethics of Ownership and Equity

Beyond the physical environment, lunar mining raises profound ethical questions about ownership and fairness. The Outer Space Treaty established space as the “province of all mankind,” a principle that many interpret as meaning its benefits should be shared globally. This stands in direct conflict with the private ownership model enabled by U.S. law, which allows individual companies to claim and sell resources for their own profit.

This conflict creates a significant risk of exacerbating global inequality. The immense technological and financial barriers to entry mean that only a handful of wealthy nations and well-funded corporations can currently contemplate space resource extraction. If the benefits of this new economy flow exclusively to these early players, it could widen the gap between spacefaring and non-spacefaring nations, creating a new form of resource-driven geopolitical tension.

The debate also involves the concept of intergenerational equity—the responsibility of the current generation to act as stewards of these resources for the future. An aggressive, profit-driven rush to exploit lunar resources could deplete them before future generations have the opportunity to use them for their own needs, which may be entirely different from our own. This raises the question of whether humanity should proceed with caution, preserving these resources until their use can be more thoughtfully and equitably managed.

As the potential first company to successfully commercialize a space resource, Interlune’s actions will inevitably carry immense weight in setting the de facto standards for the entire industry. Its approach to environmental management, its engagement with the international community, and the structure of its business model will be heavily scrutinized. These operational choices are not merely technical or financial decisions; they are precedent-setting actions in a new domain of human activity. The company’s success could validate the private ownership model and spur a wave of commercialization. Conversely, any significant environmental incident or geopolitical conflict arising from its activities could trigger a global backlash, potentially leading to a more restrictive, treaty-based regulatory regime that could stall the development of the lunar economy for decades. The responsibility on these first movers is therefore not just to their shareholders, but to the future of humanity’s relationship with the cosmos.

Summary

Interlune has decisively positioned itself as a frontrunner in the nascent space resources industry, a venture built upon a foundation of unparalleled leadership experience, a clear strategic focus on the high-value helium-3 market, and a pragmatic, phased approach to its mission. The company’s credibility is anchored by the deep expertise of its founding team, which blends the heritage of the Apollo program with the agility of the new commercial space era. This internal strength is amplified by a series of strategic external validations: a technical partnership with industrial giant Vermeer, a landmark first-customer contract from the U.S. Department of Energy, and a long-term commercial offtake agreement with quantum infrastructure leader Maybell Quantum.

The company’s core technological philosophy is centered on efficiency. By designing a harvesting system that is smaller, lighter, and requires significantly less power than other concepts, Interlune directly addresses the fundamental economic constraints of space operations. This focus on optimizing mass and energy consumption is the key to making its business model viable. The decision to process resources on the Moon is a critical element of this strategy, drastically reducing the cost and complexity of returning a finished product to Earth.

Interlune’s path forward is ambitious and fraught with challenges. Its success hinges on the flawless execution of its complex robotic technology in the unforgiving lunar environment, a feat that has yet to be accomplished at an industrial scale. The venture also depends on the continued evolution of a favorable legal and regulatory framework, one that is currently led by the United States and its Artemis Accords partners but is not yet universally accepted. Finally, Interlune’s business case is inextricably linked to the maturation of the broader cislunar economy, particularly the availability of affordable and reliable heavy-lift transportation to and from the Moon.