In March 2015 a solar-powered aircraft called Solar Impulse 2 took off from the United Arab Emirates with the ambitious goal to fly around the world without the use of fuel. Last night, after landing in Abu Dhabi, the airplane succeeded, marking the first time in history an aircraft was able to accomplish the feat. Built by an eponymous Swiss-based engineering firm, the privately financed aircraft had enough capacity for one person, the pilot. This role was shared throughout the trip by two Swiss men, Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg. The duo alternated shifts at 17 different stages of the 16-month journey. Solar Impulse 2, which weighs 5,100 pounds (about the same as a traditional SUV), was powered by 17,000 solar cells spanning the 236-foot wingspan, rivaling the width of an Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger airliner. At night, energy stored in lithium-polymer batteries propelled the electric motors. For most of the 25,000-mile trip around the earth, Solar Impulse 2 flew at a cruising speed ranging between 30 and 32 miles per hour, at a height of roughly 5,500 feet in the air.
Circumnavigating the globe without any fuel wasn’t the only record Solar Impulse 2 broke. The longest leg, an 5,545-mile flight from Japan to Hawaii, lasted some 118 hours and saw one pilot (Borschberg) break the world record for longest uninterrupted solo flight in terms of duration. But it didn’t end there. Upon landing, Solar Impulse 2 broke a total of 19 official aviation records. When he exited the airplane for the final time, Piccard (who manned the last leg of the trip) said to a crowd of onlookers in Abu Dhabi: “The future is clean. The future is you. The future is now. Let's take it further.”
