Bloodhound supersonic car charges onward and upward to 1,010 km/h

The Bloodhound LSR was built to smash the land speed record and in the last few weeks has made incredible progress toward this aim. The car’s latest run in the South African desert brought it to a blistering 628 mph (1,010 km/h), with the team now gearing up for a record attempt a year or so down the track.

With the help of an onboard EJ200 jet engine that generates 9 kN of thrust, the Bloodhound LSR raced across the Kalahari Desert on Saturday. This saw it cover a distance of 5 mi (8 km) in just 50 seconds, at which point it reached maximum velocity before deploying its drag parachute at the 11-km (6.8 mi) mark to begin the braking process.

This 628-mph effort followed recent test runs that saw the Bloodhound LSR race past the 450-mph (725-m/h), 500-mph (805-mph), and 550-mph (885-km/h) milestones and completes its high-speed testing stage. From here, the team will head back to the drawing board to ready the car for its land speed record attempt, and in doing so they’ll be bringing in the big guns.

Norwegian outfit Nammo is developing a rocket specifically to give the Bloodhound LSR the boost needed to enter the history books. The monopropellant rocket is expected to equip the vehicle with an extra 60 kN of thrust, which the team hopes will take it past the 763 mph (1,228 km/h) achieved by the Thrust SSC in 1997.

But it won’t be as simple as strapping it on and gunning for the glory. The team has built a total of 192 sensors into the car, which throughout these high speed tests were used to gather data on the fluid dynamics and drag. According to the team, the analysis from the latest run revealed airflow beneath the car went supersonic momentarily, and even stripped some of the paint off its body.

This kind of data will guide the final design of the Nammo rocket, which will be fitted to the car before the record attempt in 12 to 18 months’ time.

“The stability and confidence the car gives me as a driver is testament to the years of world class engineering that has been invested in her by team members past and present,” said Bloodhound LSR driver Andy Green. “With all the data generated by reaching 628 mph (1,010 km/h), we’re in a great position to focus on setting a new world land speed record in the next year or so.”

You can check out the Bloodhound LSR’s latest run in the video below.

Source: Bloodhound LSR