FLIGHT OF THE STARSHIP A 6503km flight without using a single drop of fuel: mission accomplished for Solvay Chemicals and Solar Impulse!
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the beginning of July the solar powered aircraft Solar Impulse completed its coast-to-coast flight across the USA when it touched down in New York. Solar Impulse is the world’s only solar-powered aircraft capable of flying day and night without burning a single drop of fuel and without generating polluting emissions. It is the fruit of nine years of unfailing support, joint initiative and shared emotions backed up by research & development focused on transforming this ambitious project into a reality. The aircraft’s coast-to-coast flight across the United States from east to west took it from San Francisco to Phoenix (Arizona), Dallas (Texas), St Louis (Missouri), Washington and finally to New York. Welcoming the crew in New York, JeanPierre Clamadieu, chairman of the executive committee of the international chemical group Solvay, said, “My first words are for 14 Industry Europe
Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg. It is with great pleasure that we welcome them in triumph at the end of an outstanding scientific and human adventure that we have actively supported over the past nine years. Because we share the same values, because we are determined to contribute to a better future, we are proud to have played a part in the success of this project. We are already prepared to support Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg in their forthcoming challenge to fly around the world in 2015. I would like to thank the Solar Impulse teams for making our dreams come true.” Solar Impulse completed its first international flight, from Switzerland to Belgium, in May 2011, during which it was airborne for 13 hours. Its first intercontinental solar-powered flight took place in June 2012 when the project’s founder and pilot Bertrand Piccard flew in 18 hours from the Madrid-Barajas
airport in Spain to the Rabat-Salé airport in Morocco. Solar Impulse performed a zero fuel speed record on the distance of about 800 kilometres between Madrid and Rabat.
A flying laboratory It was in 2004 that Solvay became the first, and the principal, partner to believe and invest in this ambitious project. It decided early on to offer its full, enthusiastic support by mobilising the skills of its engineers and researchers in the group’s main European laboratories. For nine years now several dozen of Solvay’s chemists and physicists have been contributing from Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the United States. In this way, the Solar Impulse initiative has benefited from Solvay’s expertise in materials and alternative energy sources. From the first, the group decided to make Solar Impulse a flagship project, a veritable ‘flying laboratory’ with, first, its search for
