What if 15,000 years of solar wind could be recreated in four hours? Interlune, a Seattle-based company, has taken that challenge into a vacuum chamber, implanting solar wind into lunar regolith to study helium-3 and its potential role in lunar mining.
The experiment compresses an immense stretch of lunar exposure into a controlled test. Interlune ionized helium, accelerated it into lunar regolith, and used the process to simulate the effects of solar wind over 15,000 years. The company completed that implantation over four hours.
A Lunar Timescale Compressed Into Hours
Lunar regolith carries the record of exposure to solar wind, but studying that process through natural timescales would not fit inside a practical laboratory program. Interlune’s approach creates a simulant that receives the equivalent of 15,000 years of solar wind exposure in a single four-hour run.
The work centers on helium-3 implanted into the regolith. Inside a vacuum chamber, helium was ionized and accelerated into the lunar material. That gives Interlune a controlled way to examine how helium-3 can be placed into the simulant before testing methods to release it.
Elizabeth Frank, a planetary scientist and leader of Interlune’s scientific team, is part of the effort to connect the simulated material with lunar samples. The helium-3 released from the simulant appeared at temperatures similar to those found in Apollo lunar samples, giving the company a comparison point for its laboratory work.
That comparison matters because the experiment is not limited to producing helium-3. Interlune is using the simulant to study whether extraction and processing hardware can work with material that reflects conditions linked to the Moon.
From Simulant to Extraction Hardware
Interlune plans to test hardware for lunar helium-3 extraction using the simulant. The company also plans to offer the simulant for sale to other lunar mining companies, creating a material that can support more than one organization’s work on lunar resources.
The company has a little more than 300 kilograms of pristine lunar material at Johnson Space Center. That supply gives the effort a physical foundation for creating and testing lunar regolith simulant, while the helium implantation process adds the solar-wind exposure needed for the experiment.
Rob Meyerson, chief executive of Interlune, described the challenge in blunt terms: “We’re living in this world of scarcity with the Moon.” His statement frames the work around a limited supply of lunar material and the need to make each test count.
Interlune’s other guiding phrase is just as focused: “Similitude is a discipline.” The company’s four-hour experiment follows that idea by building a controlled representation of lunar exposure instead of waiting for natural processes to provide the material.
- Ionized helium was accelerated into lunar regolith inside a vacuum chamber.
- The process implanted 15,000 years of solar wind over four hours.
- Helium-3 released from the simulant appeared at temperatures similar to those from Apollo lunar samples.
- Interlune plans to test lunar helium-3 extraction hardware with the simulant.
- The company plans to offer the simulant for sale to other lunar mining companies.
The Moon Mission Moves Into View
Laboratory testing is only one stage of Interlune’s plan. The company intends to send a prototype mission to the Moon later this decade, where it will test extraction and processing methods.
That mission would carry the work from a vacuum chamber to the lunar surface. The laboratory simulant, the implanted helium, and the extraction hardware tests all point toward that next step, with Interlune preparing methods before the prototype mission travels to the Moon.
The date attached to the effort is Aug 26, 2026 10:14 am. At that moment, the headline is not just the size of the timescale, but the shift from studying lunar material to preparing hardware for extraction and processing.
Interlune’s experiment turns a distant lunar process into a repeatable test: helium enters lunar regolith inside a vacuum chamber, helium-3 comes back out, and the released material can be compared with temperatures from Apollo lunar samples. The company now plans to push that work toward hardware, shared simulant, and a prototype mission later this decade.
Four hours created the test. The Moon will decide what comes next.
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