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 hardware was exactly the same as that used last November, "demonstrating reuse", the Amazon.com founder wrote on his blog. The flight took place on Friday from Mr Bezos' Texas test and launch facility. As has become his practice, he gave no general public notice of the event and released only limited details afterwards, along with a glossy video. November's outing marked the first time a rocket had launched a space mission vertically from the ground and then brought all elements - booster and capsule - softly and safely back to Earth. Although all the flights so far undertaken by Mr Bezos have been unmanned, he does eventually plan to fly passengers. "The very same New Shepard booster that flew above the Karman line and then landed vertically at its launch site last November has now flown and landed again, demonstrating reuse," the businessman said. "This time, New Shepard reached an apogee of 333,582ft (101.7km) before both capsule...