A solar-powered plane designed to fly both day and night has succeeded in its first attempt at a 24-hour voyage.
Taking off from its base in Switzerland, the Solar Impulse HB-SIA soared into the sky at 6:51 a.m. Wednesday local time (9:51 p.m. Pacific time Tuesday), intent on staying in the air nonstop for 24 hours by flying through the night powered purely by the solar energy captured during the day.
"24 hours and a successful flight through the night!" read a post on the Solar Impulse Twitter feed posted at around 9:38 p.m. PDT Wednesday. "This is a milestone in putting fossil fuels behind us."
The Solar Impulse site tracked the progress of the pilot, Andre Borschberg, and outlined the itinerary and hopes for the entire flight. The plan was that the Solar Impulse would slowly attain an altitude of nearly 28,000 feet with the sun's rays both powering the propeller plane and charging its batteries to prepare for the night flight.
As the sun started to sink too low to continue providing energy to the solar cells (about two hours before sunset), Borschberg planned to begin a slow descent, hitting an altitude of around 4,900 feet by 11 p.m. local time. The goal at that point was to continue flying throughout the night and until the next sunrise using only the captured energy stored in the plane's batteries. The question was whether Borschberg could coax the batteries to supply enough juice to keep him aloft all night before landing at dawn on Thursday.
"Goal achieved for SI. Historic moment. Jubilation here in Payerne, Switzerland!" read another tweet posted Thursday night on the Solar Impulse Twitter page. Solar Impulse is calling the flight the longest and highest flight completed by a solar plane.
The Solar Impulse team originally planned the first 24-hour flight for last week. But a technical glitch with the telemetry transmitter, which lets the ground crew monitor the flight, kept the plane grounded until the problem was resolved.
The public can follow the flight and aftermath via the site's dedicated page, its blog, and its Twitter feed.… Read more