Elon Musk's Hyperloop contest is being pushed back to January
Elon Musk's Hyperloop pod contest is being pushed back to January - but for good reason.
Musk's company SpaceX, which is organizing and hosting the contest, said in a statement Friday that it was moving the date of the competition weekend from this summer to January 2017 in an effort to give teams more time to perfect their designs.
"Over the last few weeks we've heard a lot of feedback from teams about the proposed timing for our Competition Weekend. We know everyone is really excited to show off their designs, but many have also told us that you'd like more time to refine your designs," the company said on its website.
"We've listened to the teams' feedback, and to maximize the number of participating teams, Competition Weekend will be held on January 27-29, 2017," the company said.
The Hyperloop, of course, is a futuristic transportation system that carries passengers in capsules at speeds reaching more than 500 miles per hour.
Musk first proposed the idea back in 2013 and made his research public so others could pursue developing the concept. While Musk is not commercially pursuing the Hyperloop, his company SpaceX is sponsoring a contest to find the perfect Hyperloop pod design.
Teams that previously qualified will have the chance to shoot their pod down a one-mile test track at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
While the contest was originally scheduled for June, the company later changed the dates to sometime in late summer. Teams Tech Insider has spoken to said they expected competition dates to at least be pushed back to late August or September.
SpaceX is also planning to let participating teams begin testing their pods in vacuum chambers and a section of the tube on August 19. Participants will have until August 25 to try out their designs.