Solar Impulse 2 completed crossing the United States early Saturday with a flight over the Statue of Liberty and landing at New York's JFK airport. Next up on the solar-powered craft's around-the-world journey is a long flight across the Atlantic.
The flight from Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania was one of the shortest legs the team has made so far, lasting just over 5 hours and touching down at JFK before sunrise on the morning of June 11th at 3:59 a.m.
The overnight flight meant relatively quiet skies for some of the busiest airspace in the world. It also dictated that the one-man composite plane rely on power from its lithum batteries to fly over the Big Apple.
Solar Impulse 2 began circumnavigating the globe in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi. Following a very long and record-breaking Pacific Ocean crossing, it was grounded in Hawaii for months while damage caused by overheated batteries was addressed. After spending the winter there, the journey picked up where it left off in April of this year.
The craft will now cool off in a hangar while mission control in Monaco looks for a clear weather window to traverse the Atlantic. The takeoff date and flight path for that important next leg have yet to be determined, but possible destinations include Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain and Morocco.
You can watch highlights of the slow motion flight over multiple New York landmarks and the landing in the video below.
Source: Solar Impulse
