Russia reported the first test of its homegrown electromagnetic railgun but allege this weapon will be used for science to uncover the mysteries of the universe and not as a weapon of war.

A team of Russian scientists from the United Institute of High Temperatures at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) successfully tested Russia's first EM railgun that relies on electromagnetic forces to propel a projectile to hypersonic speeds. The railgun tests were conducted at the practice range of the institute's Shatura branch on the outskirts of Moscow.

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The team reported firing projectiles at a velocity of 11 kilometers per second, enough to overcome gravity and reach Earth orbit. RAS President Vladimir Fortov said the railgun will help Russian scientists study matter at extremely high temperatures and pressure and understand how the Universe is organized.

China is also actively working on its own EM railgun. Chinese scientists have published some 150 articles on this issue last year.

"Our task is to try to obtain such high pressures in laboratory conditions with the help of such systems and study the behavior of matter at extremely high temperatures and pressures," said Fortov.

"This is needed to understand how the Universe is organized because 95% of the Universe's entire visible matter stays precisely in a strongly compressed and heated state. We're trying to obtain the states of matter with many millions of atmospheres with the help of these systems."

He noted a secondary aim is to study strikes by meteorites and comets against the surface of the Earth and satellites in order to protect space vehicles from the impact of high-velocity particles.

"This is also an uneasy task as the strikes of celestial bodies like the Tunguska meteorite develop the velocities of dozens of kilometers per second. Therefore, one of the tasks we're dealing with is to determine a crater shape and develop a protective system that would protect space vehicles from space debris, comets and meteorites," according to Fortov.

Fortov revealed that two fastening pins broke away from the railgun after a projectile weighing 2 grams was launched with a velocity of 3.2 km/s. Russian scientists are currently preparing the EM railgun to be capable of accelerating a projectile to hypersonic speeds.

Efforts to develop an EM railgun have been going on throughout the world for the past 50 years. 

TagsRussia, electromagnetic railgun, Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Fortov