Solar-powered aircraft



Solar-powered aircraft are electric aircraft that can be an airplane, blimp, or airship and use either a battery or hydrogen to store the energy produced by the solar cells and use that energy at night when the sun isn't shining.

Usage
Solar-powered aircraft do not require fuel, so they don't require oxygen, and they are able to operate at altitudes over 20 km to 100 km for months at a time.

Conventional passenger or cargo aircraft usages aren't practical yet with modern technology, but high-altitude platform stations and long-endurance missions over a fixed location with unmanned aircraft or airships are feasible. Thus solar-powered aircraft could be used in telecommunications, video/imagery, flight control by transporting airport surveillance radars, in precipitation detection by transporting weather radars, geopositioning Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and other pseudo satellite applications that transpond the data with ground stations.

List of solar airplanes
This list is non-exhaustive.
 * AstroFlight Sunrise - first uncrewed solar flight in 1974
 * Mauro Solar Riser - first crewed solar flight in April 1979
 * MacCready Gossamer Penguin - second crewed solar flight in May 1980
 * Pathfinder
 * Centurion
 * Helios
 * Facebook Aquila
 * Solar Impulse - first solar aircraft to circumnavigate the globe
 * Airbus Zephyr
 * BAE Systems PHASA-35
 * HAPSMobile Hawk30

Solar airships
Solar Airship One is being developed by Euro Airship and is planning to launch a would tour in 2026 and fly by 25 countries in 20 days as it travels around the world non-stop.

It will be autonomous and use electrolysis to store hydrogen to keep moving at night when the sun isn't shining.