Setback for Solar Impulse
Print Edition
The most challenging leg of Solar Impulse 2’s landmark flight around the world powered only by the sun was delayed yesterday due to concerns about the weather, organizers said.
The single-seater aircraft was due to leave Nanjing, capital city of Jiangsu Province, for the 8,500 kilometer flight over the Pacific Ocean to the US island of Hawaii in the early hours of the morning.
But the much-anticipated seventh and longest section of the maiden solar-powered global circumnavigation was delayed once again due to concerns about the weather.
“The flight that we’ve been looking forward to tonight is not going to happen,” Solar Impulse spokesman Connor Lennon said in a video post on the group’s YouTube channel.
Mission director Raymond Clerc said cloud cover over Nanjing and the Sea of Japan made take-off difficult and the journey would have taken an unacceptably long seven days and seven nights, two more than originally planned.
“We have big problems that added (together) make the risk too high,” he said.
Solar Impulse 2 has already spent nearly two months in China after arriving the southwestern city of Chongqing from Myanmar on March 31, where it was also held up for weeks by weather issues.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
