Solar plane set for night flight
17 June 2010A solar-powered plane is getting ready to hit the skies once again – this time, at night.
It will be the first ever manned night flight on a plane propelled exclusively by solar energy.
The aim of the project’s founders, Andre Borschberg and round-the-world balloonist Bertrand Piccard, is to show that a solar-powered craft is able to fly day and night – and eventually long-distance flights – without any fuel.
The ultimate aim is to push the frontier of renewable solar energy. In two years’ time, the plane will set off on its first manned transatlantic solar flight, followed in 2013 by an even more daring circumnavigation of the Earth.
source: BBC News
