A solar-powered airplane finished crossing the United States on Saturday, landing in New York City after flying over the Statue of Liberty during its historic bid to circle the globe, the project team said. The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 4 a.m. local time after it took off about five hours beforehand at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania, the team reported on the airplane's website. Such a pleasure to land in New York! For the 14th time we celebrate sustainability," said the project's co-founder Andre Borschberg on Twitter after flying over the city and the Statue of Liberty during the 14th leg of the trip around the globe. The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where the journey began in March 2015. The solar cr...
The 7m scale model took off from Andhra Pradesh and was expected to fly about 70km (43 miles) into the atmosphere before coming down at sea. Since Nasa stopped its Space Shuttle programme in 2011, there has been strong international competition to design alternative reusable spacecraft. Such vehicles significantly cut the cost of space exploration.
India has been putting substantial research and resources into its space programme. A Mars orbiter launched in 2013 is its most high profile space venture to date.
It hopes to launch a full scale reusable shuttle within a decade.The 1.75-tonne craft was not expected to survive the flight but was designed to enable the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) to collect important data on hypersonic speed and autonomous landing. The model was developed over the past five years at a cost of 1bn rupees ($14m; £9.6m).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised the "industrious efforts" of the scientists involved. Since the US retired its space shuttle programme, private companies like billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin are trying to fill the gap. Japan, Europe and Russia are also in the testing stages for similar technology.
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