Lunar Resources is a Houston, Texas-based company spun out from several NASA-sponsored technology development programs. The company hopes to use its pulsed power technologies to support industrial innovation in the U.S. and beyond—way beyond, like the moon, Mars and further—to "support humanity's expansion across new frontiers."
Last Thursday, the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) awarded Lunar a post-performance tax reduction for an $85 million Helix-1 Factory in Salt Lake County. As part of the agreement, Lunar will create 420 new jobs over the next 10 years. The 30% corporate incentive is part of the state’s Economic Development Tax Increment Financing (EDTIF) program. The state expects the project to generate more than $47 million in new tax revenue and more than $188 million in wages over the 10-year timeline.
Lunar specializes in pulsed power technologies and systems, a specialized form of electricity that delivers extremely high-power pulses in short bursts, critical to defense, energy, power transmission and industrial power systems. The company applies these technologies to applications on Earth, in space, and on the Moon. The company said the new facility will be the largest pulsed power manufacturing facility in the country.
“As we scale our manufacturing operations to meet growing demand for our revolutionary Helix Driver technology, finding a location that fosters innovation and growth was paramount,” said Elliot Carol, CEO of Lunar. The company, founded by a team of scientists, NASA engineers and financiers, wants to create vertically integrated manufacturing hubs off Earth that can extract oxygen and metals from lunar soil (regolith) and convert them into raw materials for fabrication, manufacturing and construction.
Helix Driver technology integrates the capabilities of a transformer, converter and battery to output an ideal amount of energy and power, according to the company’s website. It is a solid-state pulsed-power device capable of delivering power exceeding 1 megavolt that can be used in resource extraction, material production and refining, advanced manufacturing, energy storage and grid stability and efficiency.
The company uses an electrochemical process to extract oxygen, aluminum, iron, silicon and magnesium by melting, separating, and refining ore from regolith.
Utah’s EDTIF program is available for companies expanding in targeted industries, including advanced manufacturing, aerospace and defense, financial services, life sciences and healthcare, and software and information technology. To qualify, new jobs created by the project must pay at least 110% of the average county wage.
Industrial Equipment News (IEN) reached out to Lunar Resources for comment, but the company did not respond.
