Birthed by a vision to harness the most abundant renewable energy to bring about a revolution in transportation, Solar Impulse II has completed its circumnavigation of the earth powered solely by the sun.
What started as an idea in 2004 by Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss Psychiatrist and Baloonist was brought to reality 12 years later after the plane returned to Abu Dhabi where it had taken off in 2015.
Together with Andre Borschberg, co-founder of the Solar Impulse project, and co-pilot of the aircraft, the journey of 40,000km kick started from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.
Great feats like crossing the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, flying 4-days straight to Japan thereby creating a record of the 'longest solar-powered flight' were achieved without any use of fuel or emission of environmental polluting gases.
However, the Plane experienced technical difficulties that halted the journey for over 9-months. The aircraft's batteries reached critical operating temperatures, and due to Piccard's persistence to continue with the mission, the batteries suffered irreversible damage which led to delay in takeoff from Hawaii as engineers were working out replacement parts for the aircraft.
Solar Impulse II resumed journey in April 2016, and went on to complete it's circumnavigation on 26 July 2016, 16 months after it begun it's journey.
This is surely a great feat in the aviation sector, according to Andre Borschberg " To build an airplane of the size of a 747 with the weight of a car, something which was considered impossible by the aviation industry, we had to develop the right mindset in order to push the limits of the technologies. With Partners who believed in the same vision we developed solutions to make our airplanes very energy efficient. All these technologies can be used today in other applications to make our world more energy efficient as well."
The team of over 80 engineers are not slowing down yet. Building on the success of the solar Impulse project, there is work to develop other solar aircrafts which includes a solar powered drone.
- In Piccard's words "Our ambition for Solar Impulse is for the worlds of exploration and innovation to make a contribution to the cause of renewable energies. We want to demonstrate the importance of clean technologies for sustainable development; and to place dreams and emotions back at the heart of scientific adventure.”
Indeed there is no limit to what we can achieve!
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