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Solar-powered aircraft

Flying sun-powered vehicles

Solar-powered aircraft
Summary

Flying sun-powered vehicles

Pathfinder]] prototype

Solar-powered aircraft are electric aircraft that can be an airplane, blimp, or airship and use either a battery or hydrogen to store the energy produced by the solar cells and use that energy at night when the sun isn't shining.

Usage

Solar-powered aircraft do not require fuel, so they don't require oxygen, and they are able to operate at altitudes over 20 km to 100 km for months at a time.

Conventional passenger or cargo aircraft usages aren't practical yet with modern technology, but high-altitude platform stations and long-endurance missions over a fixed location with unmanned aircraft or airships are feasible. Thus solar-powered aircraft could be used in telecommunications, video/imagery, flight control by transporting airport surveillance radars, in precipitation detection by transporting weather radars, geopositioning Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and other pseudo satellite applications that transpond the data with ground stations.

List of solar airplanes

[[Solar Impulse]] flying over [[Switzerland

This list is non-exhaustive.

  • AstroFlight Sunrise - first uncrewed solar flight in 1974
  • SolarOne - First manned solar flight in december 1978
  • Mauro Solar Riser - first flight in April 1979
  • MacCready Gossamer Penguin - second crewed solar flight in May 1980
  • Pathfinder
  • Centurion
  • Helios
  • Facebook Aquila
  • Solar Impulse - first manned solar aircraft to circumnavigate the globe. Since reconfigured by Skydweller Aero into an uncrewed autonomous drone.
  • Airbus Zephyr
  • Kea Atmos Mk1 solar powered stratospheric HAPS
  • BAE Systems PHASA-35
  • HAPSMobile Hawk30
  • SolarStratos -It is the highest manned solar- and electric-powered aircraft, having flown at an altitude of more than 9,500 metres

Solar airships

Stratobus [[high altitude airship

Solar Airship One is being developed by Euro Airship and is planning to launch a world tour in 2026 and fly by 25 countries in 20 days as it travels around the world non-stop.

It will be autonomous and use electrolysis to store hydrogen to keep moving at night when the sun isn't shining.

References

References

  1. (December 21, 2022). "Recent Advancements in Solar-Powered Aircraft".
  2. "MIT School of Engineering | » Is it possible to make solar-powered airplanes?".
  3. (2022). "2022 IEEE International Conference on Wireless for Space and Extreme Environments (WiSEE)".
  4. Hill, Kelly. (December 20, 2021). "What are HAPS and what role will they play in future networks?".
  5. (1985). "Sunrise, the world's first solar-powered airplane | Journal of Aircraft". Journal of Aircraft.
  6. insultantable. (2014-04-19). ""Solar One", the world's first solar powered aircraft Part 2.".
  7. "First solar powered aircraft: Mauro Solar Riser". Air/E.
  8. "Plane flies on sun power", by Terrance W. McGarry, United Press International report in the ''Spokane (WA) Chronicle'', June 5, 1980, p12
  9. "Solar Impulse - Around the world to promote clean technologies".
  10. Joss, Kevin. (July 25, 2024). "Skydweller on mission to fly uncrewed solar aircraft autonomously nonstop around the world".
  11. Demarest, Colin. (November 13, 2023). "Airbus, maker of long-flying Zephyr, launches US drone business".
  12. Reed, Jessica. (July 25, 2023). "PHASA-35: High-Altitude UAS Offers Game-Changing Potential".
  13. (2025-08-13). "Swiss pilot surpasses solar-powered plane altitude record".
  14. Burgos, Matthew. (September 19, 2023). "Solar and hydrogen-powered aircraft will fly around the world for 20 days without stopping".
  15. "A Mars VTOL Aerobot - Preliminary Design, Dynamics and Control".
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

electric-aircraft energy-conservation renewable-energy-technology aviation-and-the-environment balloons-(aeronautics) balloon-borne-experiments
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