{"id":11829,"date":"2018-07-13T16:58:12","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T23:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/?p=11829"},"modified":"2018-07-13T16:58:12","modified_gmt":"2018-07-13T23:58:12","slug":"solarstratos-damaged-during-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/solarstratos-damaged-during-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"SolarStratos Damaged During Testing"},"content":{"rendered":"

A terse announcement from the SolarStratos project last week caused some dismay in your editor, but also gave hope that a brave project would go forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cPayerne, July 6, 2018 – the solar stratospheric SolarStratos aircraft damaged this morning during a resistance test on Earth, in the base of the team at Payerne. No risk:\u201d<\/p>\n

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Solar Stratos in flight over Payerne, Switzerland on March 26<\/p><\/div>\n

The bad news, \u201cHowever, the wing was damaged and its repair will cause a delay in the team\u2019s operational schedule,\u201d was reminiscent of a failure of the Solar Impulse\u2019s wing during static testing.\u00a0 The break set that project back over a year but resulted in a wing that carried Solar Impulse 2 to Morocco and back, across the U. S., and finally, around the world.<\/p>\n

Raphael Domjan, founder of the SolarStratos project, takes a philosophical view of the setback.\u00a0 \u201cOur plane is a unique prototype, destined to accomplish what nobody has done so far: fly to the stratosphere in a clean way, thanks to solar energy. This pioneering spirit involves a real technological challenge, and takes us to unknown territories. Risks are an integral part of such a project, even if our objective is to anticipate them as well as possible; this is why we carry out many tests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Designed by Calin Gologan, skilled at creating lightweight, high-performance structures, SolarStratos is a unique carbon fiber prototype. SolarStratos characterizes the airplane: \u201cIt is an experimental, fragile and sensitive aircraft. The test performed this morning consisted of gradually increasing the load on the wings, artificially, in order to simulate an extreme flight situation with two pilots on board the aircraft.\u201d<\/p>\n

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From behind pilot Hischier, passenger returning from stratospheric flight would have this view of Swiss landscape, solar cells on wings<\/p><\/div>\n

Since it started flying one year ago, the SolarStratos aircraft has successfully flown 15 times with test pilot Damien Hischier at the controls.\u00a0 Many lessons have been learned from this initial phase, which will be valuable for the next stages of the project.\u00a0 Eventually, the craft would take passengers for flights into the stratosphere.<\/p>\n