By Solar Impulse, Source: Discover Magazine

Prototype plane Solar Impulse, with pilot André Borschberg onboard, flies at sunrise above Payerne’s Swiss airbase on July 8, 2010.

For the prototype’s grand finale, Borschberg and project partner Bertrand Piccard traded off legs on a five-part journey across the U.S. starting in May 2013.

Since then the team has focused on building the plane’s successor, Solar Impulse 2, which has been 10 years and about $150 million in the making.

Intrepid Pilots

André Borschberg, left, and Bertrand Piccard are the intrepid pilots behind the Solar Impulse project.

Building on their history-making 2010 flight, they next plan to take an updated version of the plane, shown here, on the first round-the-world solar flight.


Confined Spaces

In December 2013, Piccard spent 72 hours in a specially designed flight simulator. He wore electrodes that monitored his physical well-being throughout.

Read the rest at: Discover Magazine