News

US Air Force Broke the Maglev World Speed Record

The US Air Force’s 846th Test Squadron has had a lot of practice when it comes to both breaking records and magnetic levitation. As well as setting the initial record a number of years ago, they have already broken the world speed record for a vehicle operated using magnetic levitation, or “maglev”, twice this year. The record attempts saw the squadron accelerating their rocket-powered maglev sled to 513 mph and later 633 mph at the Holloman Air Force Base.

The vehicle that made the record attempts is a 2,000-pound rocket-powered sled that is kept aloft purely using maglev technology. It is levitated by super-conductive magnets cooled by liquid helium and then boosted up to the record-breaking speeds using a series of powerful rockets that provide acceleration of up to 923 feet per second. This is far from the only use of maglev technology, with more practical applications such as levitating trains already capable of reaching speeds of 370 mph, but the 846th’s levitating sled is a unique vehicle itself.

This isn’t the end of the record attempts either, with Shawn Morgenstern, the commander of the 846th Test Squadron stating that “what we plan to do after this test is refine the design of the sled itself.” “We want to look at some lighter materials and continue to see what kind of capability we can get out of this system in terms of the speeds that we’re capable of going” he said. How fast they will be able to make a rocket sled remains unknown, but it is exciting to see how these technologies continue to push the boundaries.

Alexander Neil

Disqus Comments Loading...

Recent Posts

New Report Suggests Helldivers 2 Xbox Release Unlikely

As one of the most popular online games lately, it’s no surprise that Xbox fans…

9 hours ago

November Xbox Game Pass Games Revealed

We've finally reached the month of November, and that means one thing for Xbox users:…

10 hours ago

PS5 Pro Enhanced Games List Revealed

For those who haven't had it on their radar, this week we take a new…

11 hours ago

MSI Overclocker Pushes Kingston Fury Renegade RAM to Record-Breaking 12,196 MT/s

An overclocker from the MSI team has managed to push the Kingston Fury Renegade CUDIMM…

11 hours ago

NVIDIA Pushes SK Hynix to Accelerate HBM4 Production

It seems that NVIDIA wants to launch its next products ahead of time. We are…

11 hours ago

ASUS Unveils New TUF Gaming A2 SSD Enclosure with Enhanced Durability and Speed

The trend of upgrading storage from traditional hard drives to SSDs has become increasingly popular,…

12 hours ago