Solar Impulse 2
Round-the-world flight with solar airplane successfully completed
On July 26, the Solar Impulse 2 landed in Abu Dhabi - the last stop on a historic round-the-world flight in a solar-powered aircraft that began on March 9, 2015. As one of the technology partners, ABB was involved in the project from the very beginning.
For Swiss pioneers Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg , it is the realization of a dream that many experts thought impossible and proof that renewable energies and efficient technologies offer tangible and sustainable solutions.
In 1999, after his non-stop round-the-world flight in a hot-air balloon, the convinced researcher and doctor Bertrand Piccard had a vision: his next flight around the world would be in an airplane that would be able to fly forever without fuel. In 2004, he began to bring together the financial and technical partners for this adventure and teamed up with André Borschberg. Borschberg, an entrepreneur and experienced pilot, took on the technical challenge of developing an airworthy solar airplane. The two partners not only took turns at the controls of SI2 during the first round-the-world flight in a solar airplane, but also mastered the challenge together on the ground. While Bertrand Piccard used the project to promote the use of clean technologies at a political and economic level, André Borschberg put together the SI2 design and construction team and organized the flight missions.
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