Solar plane Solar Impulse 2 can resume circumnavigation of the Earth

The Solar Impulse 2 is ready to resume its journey around Earth, the team behind the solar plane has announced. Last year, Solar Impulse 2 set the record for the longest solo flight ever, but then struggled with battery problems.

According to the team behind the solar plane, Solar Impulse 2 is now back in ‘Mission Mode’. That means preparations are being made to fly across the Pacific. Currently, Solar Impulse 2 is in Hawaii, where it arrived last year after a flight from Japan, which also marked the longest flight ever measured in time. It took almost five days for pilot Andre Borschberg to land in Hawaii.

In the coming days, the team will provide more information about the flight schedule, which partly depends on the weather: in bad weather, the batteries do not receive enough energy from the solar panels to complete the flight. Because circumstances can change quickly, a scheduled flight can be canceled up to a few hours before take-off. After the flight over the Pacific, there will be flights over North America, the Atlantic Ocean, and then on to the Abu Dhabi terminal.

Solar Impulse 2 arrived in Hawaii last July, but the record flight showed that the batteries had overheated. As a result, the plane could not continue its journey, and due to the onset of winter it was already decided last year that another flight could take place at the earliest this month.