WUHAN, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- China will develop a supersonic speed HyperFlight transport network with a designed speed of up to 4,000 kilometers per hour, China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) announced Wednesday at the Third China (International) Commercial Aerospace Forum.
HyperFlight speeds will be ten times that of traditional high-speed trains, and five times that of the passenger airplanes, sources with CASIC said at the forum in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province.
The maximum speed will be 4,000 km per hour, it said.
The sources said the company would complete the HyperFlight program in three steps. The first step will be building a regional inter-city network with speeds of 1,000 km per hour. The second step is building a national network linking major city clusters with speeds of 2,000 km per hour, and the third step will be an international network with speeds of 4,000 km per hour to link countries along the Belt and Road routes.
HyperFlight will be a new signature product for China in addition to aerospace, high-speed rail and nuclear power, according to the company.
It will feature a transport system reducing air resistance with a low vacuum environment and supersonic shape, and reduce friction resistance via magnetic suspension.
Apart from CASIC, only a few companies, including HTT and Hyperloop One, both in the United States, have claimed to be developing a transport system with speeds of more than 1,000 km per hour.
Mao Kai, technical director of the HyperFlight project, said his company has teamed up with more than 20 research institutions from China and abroad, and boasts 200 patents in related fields.
