Solar Impulse
Long-range solar-powered aircraft / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Solar Impulse is a Swiss long-range experimental solar-powered aircraft project, and also the name of the project's two operational aircraft.[1] The privately financed project is led by Swiss engineer and businessman André Borschberg and Swiss psychiatrist and balloonist Bertrand Piccard, who co-piloted Breitling Orbiter 3, the first balloon to circle the world non-stop.[2] The Solar Impulse project's goals were to make the first circumnavigation of the Earth by a piloted fixed-wing aircraft using only solar power and to bring attention to clean technologies.[3]
Solar Impulse | |
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Solar Impulse 1 landing at Brussels Airport after its first international flight on 13 May 2011. | |
Role | Experimental solar-powered aircraft |
National origin | Switzerland |
Manufacturer | Solar Impulse |
First flight | 3 December 2009 |
Primary user | André Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard |
Produced | 2009–present |
Number built | 2 (including prototype) |
The aircraft is a single-seated monoplane powered by photovoltaic cells; it is capable of taking off under its own power. The prototype, often referred to as Solar Impulse 1, was designed to remain airborne up to 36 hours.[4] It conducted its first test flight in December 2009. In July 2010, it flew an entire diurnal solar cycle, including nearly nine hours of night flying, in a 26-hour flight.[5] Piccard and Borschberg completed successful solar-powered flights from Switzerland to Spain and then Morocco in 2012,[6] and conducted a multi-stage flight across the US in 2013.[7][8]
A second aircraft, completed in 2014 and named Solar Impulse 2, carries more solar cells and more powerful motors, among other improvements. On 9 March 2015, Piccard and Borschberg began to circumnavigate the globe with Solar Impulse 2, departing from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.[9] The aircraft was scheduled to return to Abu Dhabi in August 2015 after a multi-stage journey around the world.[10] By June 2015, the plane had traversed Asia,[11] and in July 2015, it completed the longest leg of its journey, from Japan to Hawaii.[12] During that leg, the aircraft's batteries sustained thermal damage and took months to replace.[13] A battery cooling system was installed and Solar Impulse 2 resumed the circumnavigation in April 2016, when it flew on to California.[14][15] It continued across the US until it reached New York City in June 2016.[16] Later that month, the aircraft crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the city of Seville.[17] It stopped in Egypt[18] before returning to Abu Dhabi on 26 July 2016, more than 16 months after it had left (506 days), completing the approximately 42,000-kilometre (26,000-mile) first circumnavigation of the Earth by a piloted fixed-wing aircraft using only solar power.[19]
In 2019 the Solar Impulse 2 was sold to Skydweller, a Spanish-American company that is developing autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles capable of continuous flight. It plans to use the plane for research and development flights, after which the Solar Impulse 2 is planned to be on permanent display at the Swiss Museum of Transport.