Battery overheating stalls solar plane record attempt
Solar Impulse 2’s team have admitted that the batteries were put under too much stress when leaving Japan for a five-day record-breaking 8,000 km flight across the Pacific to Hawaii. The distance covered and the time spent in the air – 118 hours – are records for manned, solar-powered flight.
Too much insulation around the batteries meant that they failed to cool down sufficiently during the flight through tropical skies and became damaged from overheating.
The plane has been grounded the plane in Hawaii while the batteries are replaced. The pilots plan to resume their round-the-world voyage in April when prevailing weather conditions are more favourable.
Andre Borschberg, who was flying the single-seat airplane on the Japan-to-Hawaii leg of trip, said the solar plane had to make a steep climb followed by steep descent after taking off from Nagoya to comply with Japanese restrictions.
The flightpath placed a lot of stress on the batteries because they had to extract a lot of energy quickly and have to put it back through the solar generator.
The wings of Solar Impulse 2, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night.
The aircraft’s attempt to be the first plane to fly around the world without a drop of fuel originally took off in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Related articles and links:
www.solarimpulse.com
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