The Bloodhound Super-Sonic Car testing in 2016

The 1,000 mph vehicle's basic build will be complete in a few months, ready for "slow-speed" testing on a UK runway. But a delay with its rocket system means there will be insufficient time to run Bloodhound on its specially prepared race track in South Africa before seasonal rains start to fall. The plan now is to wait until April or May 2016 to try to drive at 800mph. Assuming that goes well, the team would then stage a second campaign on the dried-out lakebed of Hakskeen Pan in Northern Cape, with the aim of getting all the way up to 1,000mph (1,610km/h). The hope is that this could also be done in 2016. The current land speed record is 763mph (1,227km/h).

Bloodhound's chief engineer, Mark Chapman, is disappointed to have to announce the slip in schedule, but believes it is the right decision. "The amount of investment to get us out to South Africa to run the car - to then see our efforts rained off and have to come home having done very little running makes no sense at all. "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. But, importantly, it also gives us time to complete our rocket development programme."

The last major structural elements will soon be delivered to the technical HQ in Bristol and bolted together. Some exterior surfaces on Bloodhound are even now being painted in their distinctive blue and orange livery. But the team has been hit by a frustrating technical problem related to the vehicle's rocket, which, in combination with a Eurofighter jet engine, will be absolutely essential to sending the car supersonic. This hybrid motor burns a solid fuel grain in the presence of a liquid oxidiser, which is pumped through at extremely high pressure. And tests on this pump system have experienced component failure.

Specifically, the impeller that drives the fluid into the motor has turned out to be so efficient that it has put intolerable loads on the shaft and bearings that support it. These have been chewed up in testing along with the project's supply of impellers.