Swiss students prepare to launch a solar-powered plane

ArabiaWeather.com - Engineering students at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich are flying a solar-powered plane into the Amazon rainforest in an attempt to set a new world record.

The team is preparing the unmanned aircraft (Atlantic Solar) for a journey during which it will cover a distance of 400 kilometers for 12 hours in an effort to break world records in the field of solar energy, and the fixed-wing aircraft, which weighs 6.8 kilograms, will be equipped with a set of cameras and atmospheric sensors.

It is noteworthy that the plane was tested last July and broke the previous record for any plane weighing less than 50 kilograms by flying for a continuous period with solar batteries for 81.5 hours in Zurich over a period of more than four days and three nights, and this was the longest continuous flight of a low-flying plane The second-longest flight of an unmanned aerial vehicle, the third-longest flight of a solar-powered aircraft, and the fifth-longest flight of its kind by a manned or unmanned aircraft.

The Swiss team's goal is to prove that solar-powered aircraft can be used in disaster scenarios or to take real-time photos of industrial projects and inspection missions.

The team of five will arrive; Four of them from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology to Brazil on the 17th of this month to launch the program. In the event of favorable weather conditions, the plane will take off from the city of Belém on the 22nd of this month.