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Solar Plane to Fly 'Round the World

Submitted by LiveScience Staff

posted: 26 June 2009 12:42 pm ET

Adventurer Bertrand Piccard said this week he plans to fly a solar plane around the world in 2012. The plane will be a modified version of one announced today. The Solar Impulse has a wingspan of a Boeing 747 but weighs less than a small car. It is powered entirely by the sun.

In 1999 Piccard, no relation to the captiain of the Federation starship USS Enterprise-D, co-piloted the first round-the-globe nonstop balloon flight in 1999. In the Solar Impulse, Piccard and co-pilot Andre Borschberg will fly night and day in a craft that will have nearly 12,000 solar cells, rechargeable lithium batteries and four electric motors.

Also this week we learned that a entirely electric airplane had flown faster than any before.

View Web Link Read full story at NPR

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