SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Solar Impulse 2, a fully electric plane, has landed in California after its team spent months fixing a problem with overheated batteries:
An experimental plane flying around the world without a single drop of fuel landed in California after a two-and-a-half day flight across the Pacific. Piloted by Swiss explorer and psychiatrist Bertrand Piccard, Solar Impulse 2 touched down in Mountain View just before midnight (3 a.m. ET). "It's a new era. It's not science fiction. It's today," Piccard told CNN from California after his successful voyage. "It exists and clean technologies can do the impossible."
While Borschberg set a new record for the solo flight, clocking in at 117 hours and 52 minutes, a chain of events caused the batteries to overheat. It was only after he landed that the team discovered how bad the damage was. "We made a mistake with our batteries," Piccard said after the plane touched down in July. "It was a human mistake." And a mistake that took more than nine months to fix. Fast forward to this spring, and the Solar Impulse 2 has new batteries, a new cooling system that can be manually operated by the pilot, and $20 million in fresh funding to keep the mission up and running.
[...] After several stops in the United States, the pilots hope to cross the Atlantic Ocean, and then Europe or northern Africa. They plan to return to the Middle East by late summer, completing a 35,000-kilometer (27,000-mile) trip around the world.
(Score: 2) by Techwolf on Sunday April 24 2016, @04:25PM
I like to know more about the "mistake" that cause the batteries to overheat.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Sunday April 24 2016, @04:38PM
According to the wiki article, the batteries overheated due to 'being packed in too much insulation, and overheated'. Still sparse, but all it has to say about it.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Sunday April 24 2016, @11:06PM
Solar Impulse 2 is powered by 17,000 solar cells and on-board rechargeable lithium batteries, allowing it to fly through the night.
...
Too much insulation caused the plane's battery temperature to spike on the first day of the flight.
[...] Solar Impulse will undergo maintenance repairs on the batteries due to damages brought about by overheating.
During the first ascent on day one of the flight from Nagoya to Hawaii, the battery temperature increased due to a high climb rate and an over insulation of the gondolas. And while the Mission Team was monitoring this very closely during the flight, there was no way to decrease the temperature for the remaining duration as each daily cycle requires an ascent to 28’000 feet and descent for optimal energy management.
Overall the airplane performed very well during the flight. The damage to the batteries is not a technical failure or a weakness in the technology but rather an evaluation error in terms of the profile of the mission and the cooling design specifications of the batteries. The temperature of the batteries in a quick ascent / descent in tropical climates was not properly anticipated.
Irreversible damage to certain parts of the batteries will require repairs which will take several months. In parallel, the Solar Impulse engineering team will be studying various options for better cooling and heating processes for very long flights.”
They are using lithium polymer batteries and overheating can cause chemical breakdown of the electrolyte. These types of batteries put off heat both while charging and discharging, so there is serious strain on batteries that are constantly doing one or the other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2016, @04:51PM
If it only flies 62 mph with no passenger load, you could imagine this being used inter-island in places like Hawaii or the Carribean, or short hops to the mainland if the islands are just off the coast.
At the risk of sounding like the guy who said the world only needs 5 computers...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday April 24 2016, @05:57PM
Drones that stay aloft indefinitely will be a thing:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/11225580/See-the-solar-powered-drone-that-can-stay-in-the-air-indefinitely.html [telegraph.co.uk]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dmbasso on Sunday April 24 2016, @06:51PM
I'm still waiting for the gigantic non-stop flying-hotel blimps.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday April 25 2016, @10:13PM
But what are you going to do with an indefinitely aloft drone that's bigger than a jumbo jet, can't hold a constant altitude, can't carry any passengers (or ordinance,) and can't fly as high as -- for example -- a Project Loon balloon? Too big for military or surveillance, too slow and low capacity for transport or delivery, probably too difficult to get through the red tape (due to size and altitude) for infrastructure and it can't maintain altitude for optimal strength/coverage anyway. And even if you get it working, you'd need a hell of a runway to launch the things...
Of course solar and battery tech will improve, so maybe they can make it a bit smaller or more powerful, but it still seems like you'd be better off with a blimp. Just strap a quadcopter to a weather balloon...
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Sunday April 24 2016, @05:29PM
9 months and $20M in additional funding later, and they're on their way.
Were I on the "round the world" certification committee, I'd make 'em fly back around to Hawaii if they want to claim that "this plane" flew around the world.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday April 24 2016, @09:51PM
My thoughts as well.
If you stop and rebuild your machine after a major in-flight incident it doesn't sound like any kind of record should be allowed.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by iwoloschin on Monday April 25 2016, @12:14AM
Sure...ok...but has anyone else done it yet? In that case, I'd say the record stands once they make one complete circumnavigation of the Earth, but that record should be quite easy to beat since they stopped for nine months. I look forward to reading about your attempt.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 25 2016, @04:04AM
Little short on sponsors with $20M to "augment" the campaign with, at the moment.
I'm thinking, for $20M, with the ability to stop as often as you like for as long as you like, this should have been doable a long long time ago - more or less as soon as LiPo batteries came around.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2016, @06:30PM
"Solar Impulse 2 Continues Journey With Stop in California"
"Winds up nailed to a roof top, as per new solar regulations."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2016, @08:38PM
When are people gonna get it?
http://blogs.dickinson.edu/enews/2011/03/31/how-clean-is-solar-energy/ [dickinson.edu]
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday April 24 2016, @11:37PM
there are many people looking at alternative materials.
Silicon is just currently, cheap enough and plentiful enough.
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/134305-so-long-silicon-researchers-create-solar-panels-from-cheap-copper-oxide [extremetech.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 25 2016, @12:12AM
This doesn't mean they are inherently not clean, as in "they cannot be manufactured in a clean way". The very source you linked states at the end of the article
Also, do you imagine that the photovoltaics the pane is using were produced in a back alley factory in China?
My googling shows [sunpower.com] that Solar Impulse is " using a special Maxeon™ solar cell design of remarkable lightness and efficiency."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24 2016, @11:04PM
Mountain View, California is the global headquarters of Google.
Google "has become Solar Impulse’s official Internet Technology Partner" [cleantechnica.com].
Solar Impulse stopped in Mountain View, California.
This bodes ill.