Icarus would be envious. In July, Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg completed the first solar-powered night flight.
The 26-hour-9-minute flight over Europe redrew the frontiers of aviation, as well as those of technology. It proved that an aircraft can rely on solar power to stay aloft continuously; charging by day and flying on its lithium polymer batteries through the night.
The Solar Impulse has four electric motors and 12,000 solar cells built into its 193-foot-long wings. It is a prototype for an aircraft that its inventors hope will fly from New York to Paris in 2012, and later complete the first solar-powered circumnavigation of the globe.
The July flight was also the longest and highest flight in the history of solar aviation, .
Bertrand Piccard, head of the project and famous for completing the first round-the-world flight in a hot air balloon in 1999, said the flight showed the potential of renewable energies and clean technology. "We are on the verge of the perpetual flight," he said.
