Tuesday, January 26, 2016

AECOM To Build Hyperloop Test Track For SpaceX

A big Los Angeles area construction and engineering firm, AECOM, said Tuesday that it has been selected to build the first, Hyperloop test track, for a competition being run by Hawthorne-based SpaceX. AECOM said it is building a six-foot diameter, steel tube track which will run nearly one mile, adjacent to SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorn, as part of the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition. The size of the contract was not announced. The vacuum-sealed tube--think supersized pneumatic tube--will be used to prove out transport pod prototypes being designed in the competition by students. Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, came up with the idea for Hyperloop in August of 2013, and since then, two, Los Angeles area companies--Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, and Hyperloop Technologies--have jumped on developing their own version of Musk's idea.

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