The solar-powered plane that is attempting an around-the-world flight to demonstrate environmentally-friendly technologies will be grounded in Hawaii through the spring of next year after suffering battery damage on a record-setting flight across the Pacific.
The sun-fueled batteries that power the Solar
Impulse 2 overheated during a 5-day, 5-night non-stop flight piloted by
Solar Impulse CEO Andre Borschberg, and it will take through April of
2016 to perform the necessary maintenance, the plane's crew said on
Wednesday. The problem started after soon after Solar Impulse took off
from Nagoya, Japan, and while the team was aware of the problem there
was little they could do until after it landed. "Irreversible damage to certain parts of the batteries will require repairs which will take several months," the team behind Solar Impulse said in a press release on Wednesday. "In parallel, the Solar Impulse engineering team will be studying various options for better cooling and heating processes for very long flights."
Bertrand Piccard, who's the chairman and co-founder of the $150 million Solar Impulse effort as well as one of the plane's pilots, said the battery problems were a small -- though serious -- bump in what was otherwise a successfulflight.
No comments:
Post a Comment