SEATTLE, Wash. - Interlune in Seattle has been awarded a contract from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program to advance lunar construction technologies.
The $150,000 STTR award supports development of analytical models, engineering standards, and test hardware to guide future designs of Interlune’s multipurpose lunar excavation system. The effort supports NASA Artemis objectives and long-term lunar sustainability goals under the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
Interlune and the Colorado School of Mines are working to reduce tractive force, power consumption, and dust generation compared with conventional trench-digging techniques. The company says the resulting design could support a range of commercial and government applications, including helium-3 harvesting and site preparation for NASA’s planned Artemis Base Camp.
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"We need to be great at excavating large quantities of lunar regolith, and that translates well to surface preparation activities needed at Artemis Base Camp," said Rob Meyerson, Interlune co-founder and chief executive officer. "This award is yet another example of how industry and government are working together to develop essential capabilities for U.S. leadership in an in-space economy."
Resource recovery
The project focuses on the excavation portion of Interlune’s broader harvesting architecture, which also includes sorting, extraction, and separation processes. Interlune plans to apply the technology initially to helium-3 extraction, with longer-term applications that include recovery of industrial metals, rare Earth elements, and rocket propellants. The excavation system also could support lunar construction and infrastructure development.
Project work includes physics-based modeling to predict excavation forces, system loads, regolith throughput, and overall machine performance. These models are intended to inform lunar geotechnical engineering standards and guide low-power, low-wear design approaches. Interlune also plans to test a prototype system in simulated regolith at the Colorado School of Mines to validate models and identify risks such as wear and material binding.
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In addition, the team will conduct a scalability study to assess the use of the technology from small-scale systems to full-scale Artemis applications, along with the development of a concept of operations for additional commercial and government use cases.
Interlune previously announced a long-term partnership with Vermeer to develop excavation technologies and unveiled a full-scale prototype in May. The company also disclosed plans last September to develop and test proprietary regolith simulants at a new research center in Houston.
Helium-3 is rare on Earth but relatively abundant on the Moon. Demand for the isotope is driven largely by quantum computing, with additional applications in medical imaging, fusion research, and radiation detection.
