From April 29 to 30, The world renowned plane, Solar Impulse 2 of Swiss held a special activity, the “Southeast University Day” Theme Activity. This theme activity is comprised of several interesting elements, like keynote speech, special exhibition, site visit, and cultural exchange. Thousands of Southeast University Students took part in the activity. Southeast University is the exclusive partner of the Round-The-World trip of Solar Impulse 2.
Solar Impulse is the only airplane of perpetual endurance, able to fly day and night on solar power, without a drop of fuel. The chances of succeeding at the first attempt to build a solar airplane capable of flying around the world were judged to be slim, so a more rudimentary prototype, HB-SIA, was first constructed. Lessons learned from this prototype are incorporated in Solar Impulse 2, the Round-The-World Solar Airplane.This revolutionary single-seater aircraft made of carbon fiber has a 72 meter wingspan (larger than that of the Boeing 747-8I) for a weight of just 2,300 Kg, equivalent to that of a car. The 17,000 solar cells built into the wing supply four electric motors (17.5 CV each) with renewable energy.During the day, the solar cells recharge lithium batteries weighing 633 Kg (2077 lbs.) which allow the aircraft to fly at night and therefore to have virtually unlimited autonomy. Planning to finish the Round-The-World trip in 2015, they will land in two cities in China, Chongqing and Nanjing. From Sep. 2014 to Jan. 2015, Mr. Heinrich Schellenberg, Consul General of Switzerland in Shanghai and the cabin crew of Solar Impulse 2 have visited Southeast University for several times and discussed cooperation of both parts in fields of solar energy application, green habitat design, ecological city construction, etc.. In view of our academic advantages in related fields, they’ve decided to conduct a series of activities with us while the they are in Nanjing.
