Despite completing the longest and most difficult leg of the solar powered round the world flight mission successfully, Solar Impulse ...
Despite completing the longest and most difficult leg of the solar powered round the world flight mission successfully, Solar Impulse 2's onboard batteries has suffered damages during the record breaking flight, due to overheating.
During the first ascent on day one of the flight that lasted, 5 days and 5 nights (117 hours and 52 minutes) from Nagoya to Hawaii, the battery temperature increased too much due to over insulation. And while the Mission Team was monitoring this very closely during the mission leg, there was no way to decrease the temperature for the remaining duration of the flight as each daily cycle requires an ascend to 28’000 feet and descend for energy management issues.
During the day, the solar cells recharge lithium batteries weighing 633 Kg (2077 lbs.) which allow the aircraft to fly at night and therefore to have virtually unlimited autonomy.
The four main lithium-ion batteries housed along with the engines, each containing 70 lithium-polymer cells, where supplied by South Korean Kokam.
Solar Impulse will now undergo maintenance repairs on the damaged batteries for the next 2-3 weeks, and will attempt to fly the next leg of 2,920 miles from Hawaii to Phoenix, piloted by Piccard in August.
The damage to certain parts of the batteries is irreversible and will require repairs and replacements. In parallel, the Solar Impulse engineering team is looking at various options for better management of the cooling and heating process for very long flights.
This revolutionary single-seater aircraft made of carbon fiber has a 72 meter wingspan (larger than that of the Boeing 747-8I) for a weight of just 2,300 Kg, equivalent to that of a car.
The 17,000 solar cells built into the wing supply four electric motors (17.5 CV each) with renewable energy.
