The objective of this airplane is to demonstrate that we can fly day and night, using only solar energy. And that’s what we attempted on July 7th (2010), taking off at 7 o’clock in the morning, and as we landed 26 hours later, we could demonstrate that this is feasible. And that was very, very important for us.

Of course, it was important for the project because after seven years’ work (if) you fail it’s maybe difficult to continue. But if you succeed and demonstrate it works, that I think it is important also for the outside world because it shows that the technologies we have available really can help to save energy.

Creative viewers, welcome to Golden Age Technology. On a bright, sunny morning on July 7, 2010, a new chapter in aviation was about to begin. Swiss pilot André Borschberg embarked on a flight that upon landing 26 hours later, would set three new world records and redefine the limits of aviation forever. His craft was the Solar Impulse HB-SIA and it was the first ever piloted plane to fly through the day and night fueled exclusively by solar energy.

We are ready, the runway is clear, and the chase crew are in position.

The historic flight was the culmination of seven years of research, development and testing by the intelligent men and women behind the Solar Impulse project. The team features a group of aviation and technology experts led by Solar Impulse SA’s founders Bertrand Piccard, the company’s chairman and André Borschberg the firm’s chief executive officer.

The HB-SIA is a large glider-like airplane with nearly 12,000 photovoltaic cells on its wings and tail. These cells supply electricity to the four 10-horsepower electric motors which spin the craft’s twin-blade propellers at 200 to 400 revolutions a minute. The solar cells generate enough energy during the day for running the motors as well as charging the batteries which power the plane at night.

Hey guys from the team, we can all count together! 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go! We made it! We made it, guys!

The voyage set three new world records for a solar powered aircraft: 1) reaching an absolute altitude of 9,235 meters, 2) achieving a height gain of 8,744 meters and 3) flying for the longest period ever - 26 hours 10 minutes and 19 seconds. But more importantly for the Solar Impulse project was that this success showed the world that long-distance solar powered flight is possible and that the future of sustainable air travel is bright.

Before the take-off of yesterday morning, we were convinced that with sustainable energies, you can achieve a lot of things. But so many people were skeptical. And we couldn’t prove we were right. We lacked credibility. After landing, we have the credibility. After landing we have shown that with sustainable energies, and energy savings, you can achieve impossible things. So there is a before and after in terms of what people have to believe and understand about sustainable energies.

André did not land because he was out of fuel. There was no fuel. He did not land because it was out of batteries, because the batteries were recharging. No, he landed because he had proven everything that we wanted to prove with this first flight of Solar Impulse through the night.

So there will be other flights, of course, because it’s an epic, it’s not just a one shot adventure. There will be a second airplane to fly through the Atlantic (Ocean), a second airplane to fly around the world. And we’ll work on it later on, but now we really have to enjoy this incredible success and to congratulate André for this absolutely extraordinary flight.

Mr. Piccard, who is also a psychiatrist, is renowned for having completed the world’s first non-stop balloon flight around the globe in 1999, an achievement that stamped his name in the aviation history books. He soon thereafter began planning an even loftier challenge and with a noble vision of creating a clean, green future for our world, Solar Impulse became his next great adventure.

If we want to spread a message regarding sustainable energies, we must do it in a positive and compelling way. We must necessarily make something spectacular which draws the attention in a positive way, which gives some hope and which shows that we can fly without any fuel and without time limit.

It's true that the purpose is to demonstrate what the current technologies can do.

To be sure the 26-hour flight of the HB-SIA prototype aircraft is a milestone in solar aviation history and a great achievement for the Solar Impulse project. Yet from the outset Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg have had an even more challenging objective. A new version of the Solar Impulse is to be constructed during this year, with enhanced features such as a pressurized cabin and advanced avionics that will make even longer flights possible.

The new craft, to be called the HB-SIB, will attempt a circumnavigation of the globe in the coming years. The ambitious journey is proposed to be completed within a 20 to 25-day period, with the solar airplane stopping in five continents along the way.

We will go around the world with a second plane which is in the conception phase at the moment.

And now we start the design of the second airplane and it will be built and then assembled and tested. So we plan to do the first flight around the world with this airplane around 2014.

But in the mean time we continue flying this prototype airplane.

We plan to visit some major European cities with this airplane. And the year after maybe make the first transcontinental flights.

And maybe also the Atlantic (Ocean) crossing like (Charles) Lindbergh did in 1927, but this time only with solar energy.

Since its start in 2003, the Solar Impulse project has received technical advice from major institutions such as the European Space Agency and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), which is one of two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology. The project has expanded its staffing over the years and now features a team of 50 specialists from six countries, with approximately 100 outside advisors offering additional support.

Swiss pilot and physicist Claude Nicollier has many years of aviation and spaceflight experience, including four space missions as an astronaut, and thus is an invaluable member of the group conducting flight testing for the Solar Impulse project.

I am Claude Nicollier. I am a Swiss citizen and I’ve been a pilot and a scientist for my whole life. I had the privilege of going to space also, so I was an astronaut for a while. And right now I am teaching at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) in Lausanne (Switzerland) and supporting the Solar Impulse project as lead flight test operator.

I have a lot of faith in the project and I think it’s a great goal that Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg have set for themselves, to go around the world with a solar airplane. And I was approached by Borschberg about four years ago, and he suggested that I participate in the project as the lead flight test operator. I immediately accepted.

I have experience as a test pilot also, a long, long life as a pilot, civilian and military pilot and I went to test pilot school in 1988. So I thought I could do that and I thought that was a good way for me to support a project that I believe in very much.

Sébastien Demont is another important member of the Solar Impulse project. Besides being a team leader, it is his task to determine which technologies to use in the airplane as well as make sure all parts of the plane work together. His responsibilities include the design, the architecture and the testing of the electrical system and its control functions.

My name is Sébastien Demont. I am the electrical team leader for Solar Impulse.

So my team is composed of Sepp Niedernhuber, Stefan Brönnimann, David Glassey, Antoine Toth and Hans Vistaman and myself. So we are building a solar airplane, so the team is divided into groups of people: the engineering part and the integration part.

So the engineering part is mainly choosing the components that they will use for the airplane, then designing the prototypes, testing the prototypes, and developing the electronics.

And the integration part of the team is integrating all these components and the cabling and so on in the airplane. So one big milestone was to freeze the technology that we used for the airplane. Okay, we know that we could have better (solar) cells or better batteries but at a certain point we need to freeze all the technology and then to integrate them all together.

American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” It is with this trailblazing spirit that the Solar Impulse project has and continues to reach new heights in global aviation.

We would like to convey our respect and well wishes to Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg as well as to the Solar Impulse project’s multinational team of experts, advisors and partners. By seeing the imagination and vision of these talented people, we know that we can achieve any noble goal if we set our minds to it.

The Solar Impulse project is not only an airplane, it’s also a message. You have discovered the airplane today. Please also take the message back home and spread it as far as you can. We can have a good quality of life in this world. We can solve the financial crisis, we can fight poverty, and we can protect the environment, only by inventing the future with enough pioneering spirit.

That’s why we need each of you to relay this state of mind; to push politicians and industrialists to do the same. We would like you to be the ambassadors of Solar Impulse. Thank you!

For more details on the Solar Impulse project, please visit

Radiant viewers, thank you for joining us today on Golden Age Technology. Coming up next on Supreme Master Television is Vegetarianism: The Noble Way of Living, after Noteworthy News. May we all strive to bring about a truly peaceful and harmonious planet.