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solar impulse

The Solar Impulse 2 is set to cross the Atlantic, one of the toughest stages of its attempt to fly around the globe using solar energy.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard will attempt to reach Seville in Spain after about 90-hour flight from New York.

It is the first ever attempt to cross the Atlantic in a purely solar-powered aircraft.

Bertrand Piccard takes short naps while the plane is in flight.Solar Impulse lands in Phoenix

The Atlantic crossing will be “the longest distance we have had to fly this year,” the Solar Impulse team said.

The flight was supposed to begin on June 19 but was delayed by bad weather.

Bertrand Piccard, a psychiatrist, is sharing the 22,000 mile round-the-world journey with Swiss entrepreneur Andre Borschberg.

The Solar Impulse, which has the wingspan of a Boeing 747, is covered in 17,000 photovoltaic cells to capture the sun’s rays.

The aircraft landed at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on June 11 after a five-hour flight from Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania.

The record attempt began on March 9, 2015, in Abu Dhabi, and has taken the aircraft across Asia and the Pacific to the US.

Solar Impulse has landed in Phoenix, Arizona, after ending the first leg across the continental United States in its attempt to fly around the world.

It the zero-fuel aeroplane left Mountain View, California, at dawn on May 2 and landed 16 hours later in Goodyear, a suburb of Phoenix.

Solar Impulse was the 10th leg of its round the world quest.

Andre Borschberg was at the controls, having taken over from Bertrand Piccard.

Bertrand Piccard flew Solar Impulse to the West Coast of the US from Hawaii just over a week ago.Solar Impulse lands in Phoenix

The latest stint was relatively short – 1,113 kilometers.

Solar Impulse’s take-off from the famous Moffett Airfield occurred at 05:03 PDT on May 2 and the plane landed in Phoenix at 20:55 PDT.

The team has traversed America before, in 2013. That crossing was undertaken in the prototype predecessor to the current aircraft.

Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg are aiming to get to New York by the start of June, to begin preparations for the big Atlantic crossing.

Solar Impulse started its circumnavigation of the globe in March of last year in Abu Dhabi.

The solar-powered plane flew over Oman, India, Myanmar and China before flying to Japan, from where it made a 5,545-mile passage to Hawaii.

That five-day and five-night journey set a record for the longest duration, non-stop, solo aeroplane flight.

It also resulted in damage to the plane’s batteries, forcing the team into some lengthy repairs.

Only when the days started stretching out again in the Northern Hemisphere could the team think about getting back in the air.

With 17,000 photovoltaic cells on its top surfaces, Solar Impulse gets all its energy from the sun.

Solar Impulse plane, which is powered only by the Sun, has completed the first leg of a journey that aims to cross the US after landing in Arizona.

Solar Impulse took off at dawn from San Francisco, California, on Friday and landed in Phoenix, Arizona, some 18 hours later.

The craft will stop over in Dallas, St Louis, Washington DC and New York in the coming weeks.

Solar Impulse plane has the same wingspan as an Airbus A340 but it weighs just 1.6 tonnes.

It has already made a day-and-night flight lasting more than 26 hours, and the team aims to eventually circumnavigate the globe in 2015.

Solar Impulse plane, which is powered only by the Sun, has completed the first leg of a journey that aims to cross the US after landing in Arizona

Solar Impulse plane, which is powered only by the Sun, has completed the first leg of a journey that aims to cross the US after landing in Arizona

The plane took off from Moffett Field on the edge of San Francisco Bay at 06:12 local time on Friday, and landed at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport at 00:30 local time on Saturday.

This meant Solar Impulse spent several hours flying in darkness, relying solely on the energy stored in an array of lithium-ion batteries to drive its propellers.

In daylight hours, these are charged by nearly 12,000 solar cells that cover the craft’s wings and stabilizer.

The HB-SIA craft was piloted by Bertrand Piccard, a co-founder of the effort, who is perhaps best known for being the first person to circumnavigate the globe in a hot-air balloon, in 1999.

The trans-America bid is the first attempt of its kind with a zero-fuel aircraft.

Together with co-founder and entrepreneur Andre Borschberg, the pair of Swiss pilots have racked up a number of world records and milestones in recent years.

The first night flight of a solar-powered craft in 2010 was followed by a first international flight in 2011, and first inter-continental flight in 2012.

The two will share the job of flying the plane between each of the stops of the tour.

“We’ve been preparing for this flight since last summer, so we are all very excited,” Andre Borschberg said.

The current aircraft HB-SIA is effectively the prototype for the craft that will eventually be used for transoceanic flights and the round-the-world trip. The HB-SIB should be completed by the end of 2013.

“You should see this like being in 1915 when the pioneers were trying to do these first cross-country flights – still unable to cross the ocean, but an important step for the development of aviation,” Andre Borschberg said.

The launch on Friday served as the start of the pair’s Clean Generation Initiative, an effort to encourage policy-makers and businesses to develop and adopt sustainable energy technologies.

“We want to show that with clean technologies, a passionate team and a far-reaching pioneering vision, one can achieve the impossible,” Dr. Bertrand Piccard said at the announcement of the mission in March.

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Solar Impulse, a solar-powered plane, has landed in Rabat, Morocco, after flying from Spain, completing the second leg of its pioneering journey.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard landed the Solar Impulse in Rabat, 19 hours after taking off from Madrid.

The plane – the size of a jumbo jet – was powered by 12,000 solar cells turning four electrical motors.

The 2,500 km-trip (1,550 miles), begun in Switzerland in May, is described as a rehearsal for a world tour in 2014 .

Solar Impulse, a solar-powered plane, has landed in Rabat, Morocco, after flying from Spain, completing the second leg of its pioneering journey

Solar Impulse, a solar-powered plane, has landed in Rabat, Morocco, after flying from Spain, completing the second leg of its pioneering journey

Made of carbon fibre, Solar Impulse is the size of an Airbus A340 but only weighs as much as an average family car, according to its creators.

People were able to follow the aircraft’s flight progress via a virtual dashboard on Solar Impulse’s website, which showed the plane’s battery status, altitude and speed.

Bertrand Piccard was also posting live updates of his journey on Twitter (@bertrandpiccard). In one of his tweets, the former balloonist described the “great feeling” of gliding across southern European skies with solar-powered engines.

The Solar Impulse project was launched in 2003 by Bertrand Piccard and Swiss pilot Andre Boschberg who flew the first leg of the journey from Switzerland to Madrid in late May.

The aircraft made history in July 2010 when it became the first manned solar plane to complete a 26-hour nonstop flight.

The landmark flight proved that the sun’s energy was enough to keep the plane in the air, even at night.

The organizers now hope to go on a round-the-world tour with a new and improved Solar Impulse model in 2014.

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