“If an aircraft is able to fly day and night without fuel, propelled solely by solar energy, let no one come and claim that is impossible to do the same thing for motor vehicles, heating and air conditioning systems, and computers.”
- Bertrand Piccards

It has taken six years, but soon Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg will begin test flights of their solar powered airplane, the Solar Impluse HB-SIA. It is designed to fly during the day and at night without needing any fuel.

Weighing only 1.7 tons, about the same as the average car, and with a wingspan equal to a Boeing 747, the Solar Impulse has more than 12,000 solar cells on its wing that supplies solar energy to its four 10-horsepower electric motors. The solar panels charge the plane’s lithium polymer batteries during the day and so the Solar Impulse can fly at night without any fuel.

The eventual goal for Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg is to fly the next generation of the Solar Impulse around the world in just five legs over four to six days! They hope to do this in 2012, but for now, after the initial test flights of the current Solar Impulse, they hope to do a 36 hour straight flight in 2010. Wow.

Source: www.greenertrends.com

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