Solar-powered aircraft

Solar-powered aircraft are electric aircraft that can be an airplane, blimp, or airship and use either a battery or hydrogen to store the energy produced by the solar cells and use that energy at night when the sun isn't shining.

NASA's Pathfinder prototype

Usage

Solar-powered aircraft do not require fuel, so they don't require oxygen, and they are able to operate at altitudes over 20 kilometres (12 mi) to 100 kilometres (62 mi) for months at a time.^[1][2]

Conventional passenger or cargo aircraft usages aren't practical yet with modern technology, but high-altitude platform stations and long-endurance missions over a fixed location with unmanned aircraft or airships are feasible. Thus solar-powered aircraft could be used in telecommunications, video/imagery, flight control by transporting airport surveillance radars, in precipitation detection by transporting weather radars, geopositioning Global Positioning Systems (GPS),^[3] and other pseudo satellite^[4] applications that transpond the data with ground stations.

List of solar airplanes

This list is non-exhaustive.

• AstroFlight Sunrise - first uncrewed solar flight in 1974^[5]
• Mauro Solar Riser - first crewed solar flight in 1979^[6]
• Pathfinder
• Centurion
• Helios
• Facebook Aquila
• Solar Impulse - first solar aircraft to circumnavigate the globe^[7]
• Airbus Zephyr^[8]
• BAE Systems PHASA-35^[9]
• HAPSMobile Hawk30

Solar airships

 

Stratobus high altitude airship

Solar Airship One is being developed by Euro Airship and is planning to launch a would tour in 2026 and fly by 25 countries in 20 days as it travels around the world non-stop. It will be autonomous and use electrolysis to store hydrogen to keep moving at night when the sun isn't shining.^[10]

See also

 

 

 

Solar-powered aircraft concept for Mars. VTOL capabilities to land and recharge the batteries.^[11]

See also: Mars aircraft

• Geostationary satellite
• High-altitude balloon
• Hydrogen-powered aircraft
• Ingenuity (helicopter) - Solar helicopter on mars
• Mars Aerial and Ground Global Intelligent Explorer (MAGGIE) - proposed solar VTOL aircraft to fly in the atmosphere of mars
• 2023 Chinese balloon incident
• Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay
• Radiosonde - telemetry device carried by weather balloons
• Advanced Technology Demonstrator - next generation Doppler radar for weather and air traffic control

References

1. "Recent Advancements in Solar-Powered Aircraft". AZoCleantech.com. December 21, 2022.
2. "MIT School of Engineering | » Is it possible to make solar-powered airplanes?".
3. https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.00762
4. Hill, Kelly (December 20, 2021). "What are HAPS and what role will they play in future networks?".
5. "Sunrise, the world's first solar-powered airplane | Journal of Aircraft". doi:10.2514/3.45213.
6. "First solar powered aircraft: Mauro Solar Riser".
7. "Solar Impulse - Around the world to promote clean technologies". Solar Impulse.
8. Demarest, Colin (November 13, 2023). "Airbus, maker of long-flying Zephyr, launches US drone business". C4ISRNet.
9. Reed, Jessica (July 25, 2023). "PHASA-35: High-Altitude UAS Offers Game-Changing Potential". Avionics International.
10. Burgos, Matthew (September 19, 2023). "Solar and hydrogen-powered aircraft will fly around the world for 20 days without stopping". designboom | architecture & design magazine.
11. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/41504124_A_Mars_VTOL_Aerobot_-_Preliminary_Design_Dynamics_and_Control