In 2026, scientists recreated 15,000 years of solar wind exposure on Moon soil in 4 hours; the experiment could help with future lunar resource mining

The race to use the Moon's resources faces a basic problem: scientists and companies have very little genuine lunar soil available for testing. Now, Seattle-based space resources company Interlune says it has recreated the effects of about 15,000 years of solar-wind exposure in lunar soil in just four hours, potentially giving engineers a new way to test Moon-mining equipment on Earth.

According to Ars Technica, Interlune used a vacuum chamber to accelerate ionised helium into lunar regolith simulant. The process was designed to reproduce the way solar-wind particles become trapped in lunar soil over thousands of years, creating a material that can be used to test extraction technology without consuming rare Apollo samples.

The experiment matters because helium-3, a rare isotope found in lunar soil, has attracted interest for possible commercial uses including cryogenic cooling, neutron detection and medical research. Some scientists have also considered it as a potential fusion fuel, although that remains a much more distant possibility.

Why the Moon has helium that Earth largely does not

NASA explains that the Moon has almost no atmosphere and no global magnetic field, leaving much of its surface directly exposed to the solar wind — the stream of charged particles continuously released by the Sun.

Over geological time, those particles have implanted helium and other volatile elements into the lunar regolith. Meteorite impacts then churn the soil and mix some of the material below the surface.

The concentrations are extremely small. MLQ.ai, citing a NASA-indexed study of Apollo 11 material, reported an average helium concentration of 11.8 parts per billion in the analysed samples, with titanium-rich minerals better able to retain helium.

Four hours reproduced thousands of years of exposure

Interlune's team, led by planetary scientist Elizabeth Frank, used accelerated helium ions to bombard simulated lunar minerals inside a vacuum chamber.

Interesting Engineering reported that the experiment focused on ilmenite, a mineral identified in Apollo research as an important helium-retaining component of lunar soil. The solar-wind bombardment was designed to create microscopic defects in the mineral's crystal structure where helium could become trapped.

The treated material was then heated and analysed. According to Interesting Engineering, helium was released between 300°C and 800°C (572°F and 1,472°F), a temperature profile comparable to observations from Apollo samples.

The test could solve a major problem for Moon-mining companies

Conventional lunar simulants can reproduce the physical and geological characteristics of Moon soil, but they generally lack the solar-wind gases that companies ultimately want to extract.

Ars Technica reported that NASA's Johnson Space Center holds a little more than 300 kg of pristine Apollo lunar material, making it impractical for companies to repeatedly use genuine Moon rocks for destructive testing.

Interlune plans to use its new material to test hardware designed to excavate and process lunar regolith. The company also plans to make the material available to other lunar-resource companies.

It still does not prove helium-3 mining will be profitable

The experiment addresses a testing problem, not the much larger question of whether lunar mining can make economic sense.

At parts-per-billion concentrations, enormous quantities of regolith would have to be processed. Equipment would need to excavate, sort and process abrasive soil while operating under difficult lunar conditions.

MLQ.ai reported that NASA awarded Interlune a $6.9 million contract in May 2026 for lunar-resource development involving resources including hydrogen and helium-3.

The new experiment therefore represents a step in testing the technology on Earth. The harder proof will come when an extraction system has to operate on actual lunar soil and demonstrate that the resource can be recovered reliably and economically.