Solar-Powered Plane to Fly Around the World

securitas writes "The BBC's Carolyn Fry reports on the Solar Impulse project, a plan to circumnavigate the globe in a solar-powered airplane. Adventurers Brian Jones and Dr. Bertrand Piccard, who were the first people to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon in 1999, are behind the Solar Impulse project. The project is proceeding to the design stage after a feasability study determined that the solar-powered airplane concept is a viable idea. While other solar-powered planes like the Helios prototype have relied on a secondary power source (fuel cells), this project will be powered by solar energy alone. Batteries will store energy received in daylight hours to fly all night. The first prototype is scheduled for launch in 2006."

Comments

What's the diff?

[blueberry(4*atan(1))]

While other solar-powered planes like the Helios prototype have relied on a secondary power source (fuel cells), this project will be powered by solar energy alone. Batteries will store energy received in daylight hours to fly all night.

Helios used fuel cells to *store* energy from the solar cells in a closed system. This new project uses *batteries* to perform the same function. Therefore, the phrase this project will be powered by solar energy alone is not correct in implying there is anything significantly different than the Helios.

(BTW, I did some minor work on the Helios fuel cells)

Re:So WHAT ?

[rcw-home]

I mean really, WHY ? Just because they think they can? What are the possible implication in a commercial market?

If a manned solar-powered plane can fly around the world, then one could conclude that an unmanned solar-powered plane could reliably operate for indefinate periods of time above a city or region while carrying a substantial payload.

We can create controllable aircraft that don't ever have to land. That's huge.

Such a plane could function as the equivalent of a local communications satellite, with the latency benefits of not being thousands of miles away in geosync orbit. It could transmit and receive line-of-sight microwave communications with hundreds of thousands of people. It could relay data to other planes hundreds of miles away. It would also be several orders of magnitude less expensive to fly, and would be maintainable.

Businesses are spending hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars a month on reliable private communications between their offices in the same city. There is definately a market for this.