Around the world in a solar-powered plane?

Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard made it once around the world without stopping in a spacecraft-like balloon. Now he wants to do it again in a solar-powered airplane.

Piccard unveiled a prototype, HB-SIA, today at Dubendorf airfield near Zürich that he believes can accomplish the feat. The craft, which resembles a glider but has the width of a modern airliner, spans about 200 feet, weighs 1,500 kilograms (1.5 tons) and has four electric motors that produce 40 horsepower.

The prototype is expected to be succeeded by a larger model that would attempt to round the globe. But first, the plane is expected to undergo trials with a final version to cross the Atlantic in 2012, according to BBC News.

Piccard's airplane features light composite materials and efficient solar cells, batteries, motors and propellers to get it through the night, BBC News reports. Piccard’s Solar Impulse team is putting energy, but little money, behind what they think could be a breakthrough design.

The risky attempt could be compounded by the issue that solar and battery technologies are only now becoming robust enough to fly through the night, and so far, it’s only been done in unmanned planes.

Manassas, Va.-based Aurora Flight Sciences said it is working on a solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle designed to stay aloft for up to five years, and can split into three separate planes (see Aurora reveals plans for solar UAV).

Hampshire, England-based defense contractor QinetiQ Group said one of its solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles set an unofficial world record for the longest unmanned flight of 82 hours and 37 minutes (see QinetiQ claims record flight for solar UAV).

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