Testing Of New Batteries And Cooling System Underway

After a record-breaking, history-making flight from Japan to Hawaii last year, engineers discovered that the batteries on Solar Impulse had been damaged beyond repair during the flight, and the mission to circumnavigate the globe using no fossil fuel was suspended pending repairs to the airplane.

On the Solar Impulse blog, the team reports that last Friday, the aircraft flew its first training flight for the purpose of undergoing maintenance checks for the new batteries and the newly installed cooling system. The flight went according to plan and now the team says it is one step closer to its goal of continuing the Round-the-World flight.

"The Solar Impulse Engineers are rapidly migrating to the Mission Control Center in Monaco to direct the maintenance and training flights and prepare the flight path," according to the blog post. "Engineers in Dubendorf are undergoing aircraft simulations in order to monitor and compare the new ventilation system with the performance of the aircraft when it is airborne. The first maintenance flight showed that the airplane performed well and that the new battery cooling system has no impact on the aircraft’s performance. The engineers that remain for the most part in Switzerland act as a support to the Mission Control Center, preparing for both short and long duration flights. Others are working on the conceptual study on solar-powered drones using similar technology as Solar Impulse.

"Already half of the communication team has made it to Hawaii to begin setting up the communication plan while the rest are waiting for the Round-the-World tour to take off before joining the engineers in Monaco."

The team said there would be no live coverage of the test flights.

(Image from Solar Impulse blog)

FMI: Solar Impulse Blog