Virgin Hyperloop Safety Test: West Virginia Certification Center

Virgin Hyperloop declared a significant advancement toward realizing its vision of hyperloop travel within the United States. The company disclosed today that it will conduct its certification evaluations at a newly established facility in West Virginia. This step is vital for establishing a nationwide safety certification standard for the U.S., and will include close collaboration with the U.S. Department of Transportation – an effort already in progress following the DOT’s release of preliminary guidelines this past July.

Previously, Virgin Hyperloop’s hyperloop technology was developed and tested at its expansive proving ground located in North Las Vegas. The company constructed a 500-meter “development loop” to facilitate testing, and successfully completed its initial full-scale system test in 2017. While this new location will focus on certification procedures, it will also encompass comparable large-scale systems testing and is projected to generate “thousands” of new employment opportunities, as stated by the company.

Virgin Hyperloop’s objective is to achieve full safety certification of its system by 2025, with the ambition of launching commercial operations with a functional system by 2030, assuming all phases proceed as planned.