December 05, 2009 08:00 AM
by Haley A. Lovett
Solar Impulse, a solar-powered aircraft, made history this week by becoming the first manned solar plane to take off using it’s own power.
Other Solar Crafts Have Flown, None Have Taken Off
Aircrafts have been taking to the sky using the power of the sun since 1974, when the first remote-controlled solar-powered craft took flight. Since then, many manned and unmanned solar crafts have been developed and flown by private companies such as solar-flight pioneer AeroVironment, and by NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center. Even today there are other solar-powered crafts, such as the Sunseeker II, that are testing long-distance flights using a combination of solar and other energy sources.
The Solar Impulse project was launched in 2003. The project has received funding or other support from organizations in the business and scientific community, including Deutsche Bank and the European Space Agency.
The goal of the team that developed the Solar Impulse was to create a piloted solar aircraft that used no outside power sources for takeoff, flight or landing. The researchers want the Solar Impulse to have the capability to absorb and store energy from the sun during the day, and then use that stored energy to continue flying at night, with a goal of flying for 36 hours without stopping. In the summer of 2009, a prototype for the Solar Impulse was shown in Switzerland.
Over the last few months, the Solar Impulse team has been working hard to get the craft off the ground. In November the craft successfully drove down the runway, showing that it could power itself and be successfully steered by a pilot. On Dec. 3, the airplane, piloted by Markus Scherdel, flew a distance of 350 meters at a height of just a few feet.
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