On May 5, 2025, Interlune — a Seattle-based startup — announced a new agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE): they’ll deliver helium-3, harvested from the moon, to Earth by 2029. The press release, which calls the deal a “historic agreement,” explains that “Interlune will harvest three liters of helium-3 from the lunar soil and return it to Earth for the DOE and other customers using the fully operational infrastructure of its pilot plant on the moon’s surface.”

Founded in 2020 by former Blue Origin executives Rob Meyerson and Gary Lai, alongside Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt (the only geologist to have walked on the moon), Interlune has raised over $18 million in venture funding. Their roadmap includes robotic harvesters, a demonstration mission in 2027 and a pilot pla

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