You may have heard of Lexus creating a hoverboard, but that’s not this one! This hoverboard uses “Magnetic Field Architecture” (MFA) to hover around. Greg Henderson is the founder of Arx Pax, and the fancy MFA technology. Greg would now like to apply this technology to micro satellites. Arx Pax is partnering up with NASA to explore how this technology could be used to move around tiny satellites in space using MFA.
How could this help NASA satellites? Well, MFA would allow satellites in space to safely dock with each other. Henderson explains that his hover engine technology works with any conductive surface – this means that the hoverboard would not have to float over magnets, or utilize superconductors. Arx Pax created the Hendo hoverboard to float on a bed of copper. The hover engine essentially creates “swirls of electricity” that form magnetic fields both within the hover engine and the conductive surface. By manipulating those fields, the hover engine can cause repulsion or attraction — it can make something hover. But in space, of course, the concept of “hovering” doesn’t really apply. Instead, Arx Pax believes that using its tech to move around tiny objects in space will mean that they won’t have to smack into each other when they need to pair up.
Arx Pax has plans to design a prototype with NASA over the next couple years. Arx Pax may have a humble offices in Los Gatos, but it doesn’t have humble ambitions. “On a pound for pound basis,” Henderson claims, “there’s no better way to levitate something than our engine.” Henderson says that his company will be receiving an official patent on the hover engine very soon, and he hopes to use it to do some of the work that his engine was originally designed for: protecting buildings against earthquakes and floods.
