---
type: source
title: "U.S. Department of Energy Makes First-Ever Government Purchase of Space-Extracted Resource from Interlune"
author: "Interlune (@intaboreal)"
url: https://www.interlune.space/press-release/u-s-department-of-energy-buys-helium-3-from-u-s-space-resources-company-interlune-in-historic-agreement
date: 2025-10-01
domain: space-development
secondary_domains: [internet-finance]
format: essay
status: unprocessed
priority: high
triage_tag: claim
flagged_for_rio: ["First government purchase of space-extracted resource — creates precedent for capital formation around lunar ISRU"]
tags: [helium-3, ISRU, lunar-mining, DOE, quantum-computing, interlune]
---

## Content

The U.S. Department of Energy Isotope Program (DOE IP) has agreed to purchase 3 liters of lunar-extracted helium-3 from Interlune for delivery no later than April 2029. This is the first-ever U.S. government purchase of a natural resource harvested from space.

Helium-3 applications: weapons detection for national security, cooling systems for quantum computing, medical imaging, clean fusion energy development.

Interlune has developed patent-pending extraction systems with "innovative excavation, sorting, and separation machinery" described as "smaller, lighter, and requires less power than other industry concepts."

CEO Rob Meyerson: "This amount is too large to return to Earth. Processing this amount of regolith requires us to demonstrate our operations at a useful scale on the Moon."

Interlune has also received research grants from NASA TechFlights, an NSF Small Business Innovation Research Phase I award, and DOE IP funding.

Interlune's operational plan includes "harvesters, helium-3 return-capsule launchers, a solar array network and possibly wireless power transmission stations."

Separate Bluefors contract: up to 1,000 liters of lunar helium-3 annually, expected value ~$300M. Application: quantum computing coolant.

Timeline: multispectral camera on Griffin-1 (Jul 2026), extraction demo 2027, pilot plant 2029.

## Agent Notes
**Triage:** [CLAIM] — The DOE purchase creates a precedent for government procurement of space resources. The Bluefors contract creates the first large-scale commercial demand signal for lunar ISRU.
**Why this matters:** Helium-3 may be the first commercially viable lunar resource extraction product, preceding water-for-propellant because it has immediate high-value terrestrial customers (quantum computing requires more He-3 than exists on Earth).
**What surprised me:** The demand driver is quantum computing, not fusion. Fusion has been the traditional He-3 narrative but quantum cooling is the near-term market.
**KB connections:** Challenges the assumption in [[water is the strategic keystone resource of the cislunar economy]] — water is the keystone for in-space operations, but helium-3 may be the keystone for Earth-return economics. Connects to [[falling launch costs paradoxically both enable and threaten in-space resource utilization]].
**Extraction hints:** Two claims: (1) helium-3 for quantum computing may be the first commercially viable lunar extraction product; (2) DOE purchase creates precedent for government procurement of space resources.

## Curator Notes
PRIMARY CONNECTION: water is the strategic keystone resource of the cislunar economy because it simultaneously serves as propellant life support radiation shielding and thermal management
WHY ARCHIVED: Challenges the keystone resource assumption — helium-3 has immediate terrestrial customers willing to pay extraction-scale prices, which water-for-propellant does not
