TU Munich Hyperloop test track opened

A team at the Technical University of Munich has been researching the Hyperloop for ten years. Europe’s first fully certified test track for passenger operations has now been opened in Ottobrunn.

Traveling at 900 kilometers per hour in a capsule through a vacuum tube. What sounds like a scenario from a science fiction movie is actually being worked on by a team at the Technical University of Munich. The so-called Hyperloop should make exactly that possible. The project began after Elon Musk launched a competition for students on this technology in 2012. Teams from the Technical University of Munich won first place. In the following years, they continued to shine in competitions in Musk’s circle of influence. His aerospace company SpaceX had a 1.6-kilometre-long test track with a diameter of around 1.8 meters on a site in California until 2022. In 2019, for example, the Munich-based company set a speed record of 463 km/h there. The developers have been working on the Hyperloop project for a good 10 years now. The team now comprises a total of 86 employees from 26 nations.

Those responsible see the test track, which has now been opened in Ottobrunn near the Bavarian capital, as a further milestone in development. It is Europe’s first test track to be fully certified for passenger operation. In Nevada, the US company Hyperloop One successfully drove a capsule with people on board through a test tube back in 2020. A year later, however, it abandoned its research into passenger transportation in order to focus on the more practical freight business. What is now happening in Ottobrunn could therefore also be of international significance. It is no coincidence that the project at the University of Munich has been anchored in its own Hyperloop program for some time. This in turn has been part of the “Hightech Agenda Bayern” since 2020 and is co-financed by the Free State of Bavaria.

Minister President Markus Söder and Science Minister Markus Blume (CSU) were therefore also present at the inauguration ceremony. Söder spoke of “super potential” and Blume emphasized that every great idea starts small. He was alluding to the size – or length – of the test tunnel. It is currently only around 24 meters long. No new speed records are initially expected on this route. The Hyperloop needs ten to twenty kilometers to reach a speed of around 900 kilometers per hour. The capsule with five seats in Ottobrunn, on the other hand, only moves through the tube at walking pace. At the current stage, however, the main focus there is on researching the sealing of the concrete tube on a real scale. There is also a focus on the capsule and the safety of passengers in the vacuum of the tube. In-depth research into the control and drive system is also planned. Finally, the researchers are working on a station concept.

The first test drive of the prototype took place on July 10 of this year. And the international team has already set its sights on the next step: They want to build a one-kilometer test track by 2025. Where and when remains to be seen. However, this should also be available to the public for test drives. The science fiction vision of locomotion could therefore actually be realized in the next few years.

Read more about the Hyperloop in Germany here.