The Bloodhound Supersonic Car will not be heading for a desert in South Africa in an attempt to surpass the world land speed record - at least not this year, the team behind the 1,000 mph car says.
There are plans for some "slow-speed" testing along an airport runway in Great Britain in November, but a delay in developing the car's rocket system has left insufficient time for its planned run on the specially prepared dry lake bed in South Africa ahead of seasonal rains there, team officials said.
The British-built car will be rolled out at the Newquay Aerohub in Cornwall on Nov. 17 for some 200 mph shakedown runs, they said.
A South African series of runs could begin in April or May 2016, with hopes of first attaining a speed of 800 mph.
That would break the existing land speed record of 763 mph.
The ultimate goal still remains 1,000 mph.
"The most pragmatic thing is to deploy out to the desert in April or May next year, at the start of the dry season, and that gives us the best opportunity to build up those speeds," says Bloodhound SSC chief engineer Mark Chapman.
The delay comes as the team has encountered technical problems with the car's rocket, which is meant to work in tandem with a jet engine from a fighter plane to generate thrust equivalent to 135,000 horsepower to achieve supersonic speeds.
Specifically, components in a pump designed to provide a liquid oxidizer to the rocket motor at incredibly high pressure have experienced failure, putting the program back by at least 10 weeks, engineers say.
New, more robust components - most particularly an impeller meant to pump more than 200 gallons of oxidizer to the engine in just 20 seconds - will take many weeks to manufacture, putting the work on hold until they can be replaced.
"The thing we keep saying to the kids when we go into schools is that in engineering you learn more from a failure than you do from a success," says Conor La Grue, the project's components chief.
Aside from the rocket problem, construction of the 7-ton vehicle is "well advanced," the Bloodhound SSC team says.
Andy Green, who will drive the car and also holds the existing 763 mph record set in 1997 in the Thrust SSC car, says people who live near the dried-out lake bed of Hakskeen Pan in South Africa have told the team not to try and run the car in December or January, a rainy season with daytime temperatures approaching 113 degrees Fahrenheit.
"It makes much more sense to take slightly longer to prepare the desert car and get it running at high speed in spring 2016 at the start of the weather window," Green says. "And then if we get a bit delayed, it doesn't matter - the weather just keeps getting better and better."
The Bloodhound project is a global engineering adventure meant to engage interest worldwide. It began in 2008 when the team announced its plans to reach a 1,000 mph World Land Speed Record while inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers with an iconic project.
