“I am proud what we’ve been able to accomplish together, all of us, from the engineers that have built a fantastic airplane, to the Mission team experts that found a safe but successful strategy to the ground crew who had to operate in challenging conditions and multimedia team who under any circumstance brought the message of the project to the public. The world’s first intercontinental solar-powered flight would have never happened without the fantastic support provided by all people that crossed HB-SIA’s way.”  

Bertrand Piccard, Initiator and Chairman of the Solar Impulse Program, said as the ground crew opened the canopy. “The success of this mission was not only aeronautical: it also stands in the quantity of positive emotions we managed to bring to the cause of renewable energies.” This intercontinental flight campaign, under High Patronage of His Highness The King Mohammed VI and upon invitation of the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (Masen), allowed Solar Impulse together with Masen to raise awareness about solar energy’s potential and about Morocco’s pioneering solar plan whose goal is to build the world’s largest thermosolar plant in the region of Ouarzazate. This month of events in Morocco underlined Solar Impulse’s and Masen’s common message to invest in innovative projects today for job creation and sustainable growth while also decreasing dependency on fossil fuels. 

“This Moroccan mission was a success from all angles as well as an extraordinary human experience. Apart from the interactions with the extremely qualified and multidisciplinary Solar Impulse team, this event was an occasion to share our convictions, our values and our engagement with national and international communities thanks to the mobilization of thousands of people during the events we organized on the runways of Rabat-Salé and Ouarzazate and thanks to the millions of viewers through the media.” said Mustafa Bakkoury, President of Masen. 

Solar Impulse HB-SIA, the first airplane designed to fly day and night without requiring fuel and without producing carbon emissions, demonstrates the enormous potential held by new technologies in terms of energy savings and renewable energy production. Seven years of intensive work, calculations and tests by a team of 70 people and 80 partners have contributed to producing this revolutionary carbon fiber airplane, with a wingspan as wide as that of an Airbus A340 (63.4m) and a weight equivalent to that of an average family car.