Solar Impulse undergoes maintenance repairs in Hawaii, no flying till August

After completing the longest solo plane flight last week, its batteries need some repairs which will keep the aircraft grounded till at least August.

It was announced Saturday that repairs are needed on the batteries due to damages brought about by overheating.

Too much insulation caused the plane’s battery temperature to spike on the first day of the flight and there was no way to cool it after Solar Impulse was off the ground, the aircraft’s team said. “And while the Mission Team was monitoring this very closely during the mission leg, there was no way to decrease the temperature for the remaining duration of the flight as each daily cycle requires an ascension to 28,000 feet and descend for energy management issues”, the statement said.

“Solar Impulse doesn’t see the likelihood for any flights earlier than 2-3 weeks on the earliest”.

As per the press release it may take up to three weeks for the Solar Impulse 2 to hit the skies once again, until then the fix work will continue to ensure that the aircraft can perform as expected on the next leg of this journey. The Solar Impulse 2’s engineers are also looking at ways to better manage the cooling and heating process for long flights, the statement said. Searchable terms include #solarimpuse, #rtw, #thefutureisclean, #Si2, @andreborschberg andwww.solarimpulse.com.

Flying around the world on only the power of the sun turns out to be more of a stop-and-go affair than even the team behind Solar Impulse 2 may have guessed. While Swiss pilot and Solar Impulse co-founder André Borschberg survived a record-breaking five-day flight from Nagoya, Japan to Oahu with just minimal sleep, SI2’s batteries didn’t all fare so well without rest.

Includes information from Republic reporter Laurie Merrill.