Source: https://www.kp.ru/daily/26676/3699473/
Devices on solar powered Today you won’t surprise anyone. Nevertheless, the first test flight of the solar-powered stratospheric aircraft SolarStratos, which took place on May 5, can be called a significant event.
You may ask how this Swiss SolarStratos differs from its fellow solar glider, famous for circumnavigating globe, having made 16 landings? Or from the solar-powered apparatus of Fedor Konyukhov, who intends to fly around the Earth on it without landing in 120 hours?
The difference is that SolarStratos is designed for higher altitudes. If Fedor Konyukhov plans to climb 16 kilometers up, then the Swiss stratospheric plane is designed for flights at an altitude of 25 kilometers and above. There is no weightlessness there yet, but experts call these layers of the stratosphere already near space. The development of this area is considered a very promising direction. The fact is that here you can launch atmospheric communication satellites, which are several times cheaper than space satellites. Or surveillance satellites, they will not only save money, but also provide more accurate information. After all, from a height of 20-30 kilometers it is possible to more accurately determine, for example, the boundaries of a forest fire than from near-Earth orbit (over 160 km).
By the way, not long ago Russia began testing the Sova solar-powered atmospheric satellite. But this is a small drone weighing 12 kilograms and a wingspan of 9 meters.
And SolarStratos is the world's first full-fledged two-seat stratospheric aircraft. It weighs 450 kilograms, the fuselage length is 8.5 meters, the wingspan is 25 meters. Moreover, 22 square meters The surfaces are occupied by solar panels.
In the spring, the Swiss Federal Administration of Civil Aviation gave the head of the SolarStratos project, Rafael Domyan, permission to conduct flight tests. And at the beginning of May the miracle plane made its first flight. Test pilot Damian Hichier raised the device to a modest altitude of 300 meters during a short 7-minute flight. The plane will begin to ascend into the stratosphere when the designers are convinced that the device is working perfectly.
The problem is that the pilot has no right to make a mistake: in order to make the plane as light as possible, the engineers did not equip the cabin with systems for maintaining normal pressure and temperature. To survive at a temperature of minus 56 degrees and atmospheric pressure tens and hundreds of times lower than on the surface of the Earth, both pilots put on spacesuits. What’s interesting: the Swiss chose the Russian “Falcon” spacesuit among various options; it is not intended for spacewalks, but allows it to withstand the conditions of interstellar space. The only negative is the inability to use a parachute in case of an emergency. Therefore, increased demands are placed on the safety of a stratospheric aircraft.
We are very pleased that we can demonstrate a working technology that allows us to achieve more than devices using fossil fuels,” said Rafael Domyan. — Electric and solar cars will replace engines internal combustion from the market in the 21st century. And our aircraft can fly at altitudes of 25,000 meters and this opens the door to commercial electric and solar aviation opportunities within near space.
Domyan hopes that flights to the stratosphere can be sold to tourists.
TTX SolarStratos
- Length – 8.5 meters
- Wingspan – 24.9 meters
- Weight – 450 kilograms
- Autonomy reserve – more than 24 hours
- Drive – 4-blade propeller, diameter – 2.2 meters
- Motor – electric power 32 kW,
- Motor efficiency – 90%
- Number of pilots – 2
- Power – solar energy
- Solar battery area – 22 square meters
Nowadays, scientists do not forget to mention at least once a month that oil is running out, gas is running out, atomic energy is dangerous, and in general, in two hundred years, humanity will switch to a world economy and production that will stop without fuel. In contrast, there are many articles in the media about the development of technologies for air, water, animal and human waste, and others different options. Some of them look like science fiction, others have real technical developments and are already being used with all their might, such as solar energy.
Solar energy
We are accustomed to the fact that our favorite star gives us warmth and light, helps us grow crops, and warms water in lakes, rivers and seas. But besides this, energy sun rays may be used differently. Already several decades ago, solar-powered calculators appeared on the market. Now this won’t surprise anyone. Eat finished projects: the first houses have already been built based on them, which are heated by solar energy and are used in Russia in winter conditions. The project provides for backup heating, since in our area the sun can be covered by clouds for a long time.
Every average person can buy solar panels, but the price is very high. In addition, it is cheaper to obtain energy and heat in the usual way. However, in conditions where there are no conventional energy sources, for example on long-distance expeditions or in space, solar panels are the main ones. In Europe, private sector residents place them on the roofs of their own houses and sell excess electricity to their own state. But Germany is not the sunniest country. Another advantage of solar energy is that it is renewable. Although scientists say that the Sun will not always shine, but, compared to human life, ours has shone forever.
Solar powered plane
In our time, such an aircraft was built. It may not be very fast and maneuverable, but its fuel costs nothing, harmful emissions No. located over the entire surface of the wings and the body itself. On a test flight, the aircraft covered 1,541 km from Phoenix to Dallas. The maximum altitude was 8200 meters, and the average speed was 84 km/h.
The plane was not piloted by one of its creators, Andre Borcherg. This flight is one of his next records; he previously made a 26-hour journey on the same plane called Solar Impulse. Now the tester is actively making plans to cross the whole of America, and then fly around the world.
The entire team that created the ship and prepared it for operation is trying to do everything possible to ensure that its work is covered as much as possible in the media. After all, the main task of such events is to show the whole world that the energy of solar rays has great prospects and can be used to the maximum by humans.
History of creation
Solar Impulse is a glider with a wingspan of 63.4 meters, its mass is 1.5 tons, has four electric motor with a total power of 7 kilowatts. It is understood that the illumination of solar panels may be uneven. More than four hundred kg falls on lithium batteries, which are charged in the parking lot. Any previous solar-powered aircraft flew only by recharging from the sun; even if there were batteries, they were small.
Now Solar Impulse 2 has been created, it is much larger than its predecessor, has more solar cells - as many as 17 thousand. The wingspan is more than 70 meters. It was made from hydrocarbon fiber to reduce weight. However, it weighs 2.3 tons. Thanks to powerful batteries, it can fly for several days and nights at speeds of 50 to 100 km/h.
Prospects for solar fuels
There are a huge number of examples of the use of solar energy. The simplest one was shown in the Soviet film “3+2”, where a doctor of physical sciences laid out mirrors in an umbrella and heated food in a pot with reflected light. Now science is developing the technology of using thermal insulation, which has a surface that perceives solar energy.
Using the same technology, installations for drying agricultural crops and heating houses are already being produced and operating. In order not to make them too large in area, grooves are made in the surface of the heaters, which increase the area of the material that receives solar energy.
In regions of our planet where winters are harsh, most of the energy is spent on heating. To save energy, passive solar systems, which have a large area facing the sun, collect energy and warm the house. The idea is good, but difficult to implement. The house must have excellent insulation, ventilation must be regulated, when using only solar energy, the optimal temperature in the house is reached only in the middle of the day, and in summer it is too hot in it.
Solar powered aircraft are a great example of untapped possibilities. A prototype of a passive system is installed on it. But there are also active ones. They heat water or air. Only then they, as coolants, enter the house. They are easier to control and can be installed on already built houses, but their effectiveness is not sufficient for the harsh winters of Russia. However, in hybrid systems, when combined with conventional energy sources, active solar systems can save up to 60 percent of energy.
Sunmobile
A solar-powered aircraft is not the only modern transport powered by this type of energy. There is a sunmobile, and not even one. Every year in Switzerland there is a competition between such cars, it is called the “Tour de Sol”. The race lasts six days. Every day, participants must cover from 80 to 150 km along the roads of Switzerland and Austria.
Several years ago, such a solar car made its way through Russia. It turned out that its wheels could not drive along our country roads, and the traffic went along the highways. Russia is large, and there is not enough sun everywhere. But, despite all the difficulties, the sunmobile completed its route. Maximum speed of such transport is 170 km/h. The use of solar energy in the form of a solar car has received yet another positive confirmation. In Europe, some models have already entered the series.
Solar panels. Price. Production
Solar panels are essentially photovoltaic cells that convert solar energy. In the movie "The Martian" they are clearly shown when main character after a disaster, cleans them of dust. In Russia they are not popular and are not produced. Regular minimum private order form in the amount of 9 thousand rubles. The solar panels themselves, the price of which varies depending on the size of the product, cost from one and a half thousand rubles to 15 thousand.
Use in Russia
In our country the sun shines regularly, but not very strongly. The examples of the use of solar energy outlined above can be applied throughout our country. Unfortunately, using batteries will only pay off in the long run. But if you consider not only the amount of money, but also the savings natural resources, then we can confidently say that this technology needs to be developed and actively used as much as possible.
Electric planes, which fly using the energy of sunlight, are a one-piece product. Each is unique and is created with private investment, rather for image and research purposes than with the intention of launching such a unit into mass production. Perhaps the most famous projects in the field of solar aeronautics are now being created in Switzerland - these are airplanes SolarImpuls And SolarStratos. On the first of them, Bertrand Piccard, the grandson of the inventor of the stratospheric balloon, Auguste Piccard, flew around the world three years ago. ABOUT SolarStratos The “Attic” is already there - with it the Swiss pilots plan to ascend into the stratosphere. In the summer of 2018, the American company Bye Aerospace tested the StratoAirNet family of aircraft Solesa— such aircraft, according to the company, can be used for military patrols, mapping and search and rescue operations. The Russian industrial holding ROTEC decided to keep up with global trends and also began developing a “solar” aircraft. The project was called "Albatross".
What will fly?
The Albatross project consists of two stages. The first is the creation and testing of a flying photovoltaics laboratory, which will collect information on the operation of solar panels, energy storage devices and other systems during flight. At the second stage, the actual plane will be built, on which the pilot will fly around the Earth in five days, without ever landing.
The flying laboratory is a German motorized two-seat glider Stemme S12, equipped with solar photovoltaic cells, a hybrid energy storage system (supercapacitor and lithium-ion battery) and scientific equipment.
“Due to the fact that this is a laboratory, we needed a very high aerodynamic quality in order to fly for a long time, and enough space to accommodate the equipment, plus the possibility of high flights. Therefore, an aircraft was chosen that combines these qualities,” says Mikhail Lifshits, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ROTEC JSC, head of the Albatross project, pilot. — The aerodynamic quality of this 1-53 glider is the best in the world today. Equipment - load devices, measuring systems, positioning - is located in the rear compartment. Everything related to science and measurements is made in Russia. And the testing platform is German.
Evgenia Shcherbina / Chrdk.
Aerodynamic efficiency can be roughly thought of as the distance that an aircraft can cover in a calm environment by gliding alone. Its value of 1-53 means that the aircraft can glide 53 kilometers from an altitude of one kilometer, gradually descending. For example, an albatross that can catch warm rising air currents and, thanks to them, soar for a long time above the surface of the ocean, has a lift-to-drag ratio of 1-20 - greater than that of most aircraft. Only some bombers and specially designed gliders can glide longer than an albatross, such as Voyager, which made the first non-stop, non-refueling flight around the Earth.
According to Lifshits, despite the fact that the Albatross designers take into account the world experience of flying on electric aircraft, they still did not have reliable data on how solar modules and energy storage devices behave when different types illumination, on different heights and in different climatic conditions, which is why the need for a flying laboratory arose.
— There are scientific and practical centers in St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, Moscow, but there the elements of photovoltaics are located on the ground. But this is how much we will collect at different angles of attack, at different positions of the sun, at different latitudes, altitudes, with different underlying surfaces, in different times days? Essentially, there is no systemic answer. And in order to design an aircraft correctly, you need to have calculation bases. That's why we designed a flying laboratory. This is the first stage of the project, and it is already unique, because there has never been such high-quality research in the world,” says Lifshitz.
Solar modules for the aircraft will be made by a Russian group of companies Hevel. Their efficiency - 22.5% - is not as high as that of SolarStratos(24.6%), but higher than the efficiency of conventional monocrystalline silicon batteries (up to 20%). However, according to Lifshitz, daytime output and the ability of the cells to operate in diffuse light are much more important for flight, because providing direct sunlight is quite problematic. The Albatross will not use conventional monosilicon solar cells, which are used on solar power plants, and heterojunction ones are more efficient and capable of working in diffuse light. Similar semiconductor photocells are used in the design of spacecraft.
Solar modules are attached to both the upper and lower surfaces of the wing of the glider-laboratory to collect radiation reflected from the earth's surface sunlight. The appearance of the future aircraft depends on the accumulated data, but it is already clear that it needs large wings. The approximate wingspan of the aircraft, which so far exists only on paper, is 30 meters.
How will it fly?
The photovoltaics laboratory is currently undergoing a series of tests: flights have already taken place in the area of the Severka airfield in the Moscow region, but flights throughout Russia are also planned. And from January 2019, the design of the aircraft itself, the Albatross, will begin. The authors intend to involve designers from Australia and Britain in the development of the engine. The Albatross will take flight in 2020 and will be piloted by the famous Russian traveler Fyodor Konyukhov. Now he is training and studying to become a glider and small aircraft pilot in Belarus.
“You see, I’m 67 years old, and I’m still studying,” Konyukhov laughs. — By 2020, when I have to fly on the Albatross, I will already have many hours of flight time on conventional aircraft. I know the sky, I've flown hot air balloon around the world.
Fedor Konyukhov before the start of a round-the-world flight in a Morton hot air balloon Pavel Vanichkin / TASSThe Russian “solar” plane will make its round-the-world flight at the flight altitude of conventional passenger planes—about 11 kilometers. The plane's speed will reach approximately 200-220 kilometers per hour.
“At an altitude, respectively, the wind is 300 kilometers per hour and our speed is 200 kilometers per hour - so we will move at a speed of about 500 kilometers per hour,” the traveler reasons.
Konyukhov collected data on the behavior of the wind at different altitudes during his trip around the Earth in a hot air balloon - they will also be used in calculating the flight of the Albatross.
It is assumed that during the day the plane will gain maximum altitude, and at night it will glide several hundred kilometers, reaching 8-10 kilometers above sea level by the morning. A high altitude for flight is needed not only because of the strong wind, but also because there are no thunderstorms at such an altitude. Getting caught in thunderclouds is very dangerous.
— When I was flying in a hot air balloon, I had the following attitude: “At night you should see the stars, during the day you should see the sun. If you don’t see, then you’re falling,” says Konyukhov.
He also trains to survive five days of near-motion in a small airplane cabin. The autopilot will allow you to take your mind off control and relax. The traveler will also have a special liquid diet, light and balanced. In case of evacuation, the entire plane will be lowered by parachute.
Photo courtesy of the Skolkovo Foundation press service
The flight is planned to be carried out in the Southern Hemisphere, since there is too much land in the Northern Hemisphere and, accordingly, countries with which it would be necessary to negotiate about flying in their airspace, and this is difficult. So most of the way there will be ocean under the wing of the Albatross. Now the authors of the project are negotiating with the Australian government to fly over it, and the Albatross will also fly over New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and South Africa.
Also in 2020, the plane SolarStratos will also take its first flight. But, according to Lifshitz, the projects have no competition. The Swiss plan to rise to a maximum altitude of 25 kilometers, and the flight will last only a few hours. To facilitate the design, the aircraft cabin will not be pressurized, so the pilot will spend these hours in a spacesuit, which, by the way, is being developed by the Russian company Zvezda. The Albatross will be in flight for five days, and the pilot will remain in a pressurized cabin without a spacesuit.
Why will it fly?
According to Mikhail Lifshits, for ROTEC in the Albatross project, it is not the financial component that is important, but rather the research component.
— It is clear that we are not the first to take on such a project. We looked closely at what was happening in the world, starting with Picard, who flew around the world. It took him two years, 17 landings, each of which involved repairs to the aircraft. After that there were attempts. We know about these projects and are friends with everyone to one degree or another. And the first thing we decided to do was to take into account their mistakes. Not so much mistakes as trying to make the project more applied, technical, scientific,” says the pilot.
According to him, no one needs mass production of manned “solar” aircraft capable of flying around the Earth at a time. From a commercial point of view, solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles are more promising.
— There are now many projects of solar-powered atmospheric and stratospheric satellites, but so far they are only carrying themselves. We are trying to make a full-fledged aircraft with the highest payload,” explains Lifshitz.
“In addition, with the help of such a device it will be possible to test some technologies in the field of energy storage devices, fuel cells, new coatings and materials,” adds Oleg Dubnov, vice president, executive director of the cluster of energy efficient technologies of the Skolkovo Foundation.
The creators of Albatross also hope that the success of the project will raise the country’s prestige and stimulate the development of fuel-free aviation. They expect that in the future, autonomous aircraft will replace satellites in a number of industries; they can be used to monitor the surfaces of oceans, forests and lands agriculture.
“These flights and solutions will show how much solar energy can be used now, whether the time has come and whether technologies have reached the level of development when it is possible to do this,” says Dubnov.
With the light hand of journalists, solar-powered aircraft capable of staying in the air for an unlimited time began to be called atmospheric satellites, although this concept includes much more objects, such as balloons. The most publicized project in this area was the Solara 50 of the American company Titan Aerospace, pictures of which flooded the Internet and the pages of magazines. But no one waited for real flights. The concept failed due to the fact that a large plane cannot be made the same as a small one. The video turned out to be very beautiful, but such a plane, alas, could not fly.
Lasted the night
With some stretch, the “father” of atmospheric satellites can be called the NASA Helios solar-powered unmanned vehicle, which on August 3, 2001 reached an altitude of 29,524 m, which remains the current world altitude record for sustained horizontal flight for winged aircraft without jet engines, and spent more than 40 minutes at an altitude of more than 29 km. However, he failed to stay in the air for at least a day, and in 2003, during a test flight for the maximum duration of stay in the air at an altitude of 850 m, Helios fell into a zone of severe turbulence, collapsed and fell into the Pacific Ocean.
Much greater success was achieved by the ultra-light Zephyr drone developed by the British company QinetiQ, which in 2007 set an unofficial world record for flight duration for a UAV - 54 hours. In 2008, the 30-kilogram Zephyr-6 spent 82.5 hours in the air, and in 2010, the 30-kilogram Zephyr-7 lasted over the Arizona desert for two weeks, with a maximum flight altitude of 18 km. After this, QinetiQ was acquired by Airbus Defense and Space, and the project became completely military and secret. The new Zephyr-8 in 2015 stayed in the air for the same two weeks, but with a payload of 5 kg. And this year it is reported that testing of the Zephyr S with a 22.5-meter wingspan has begun. Project Zephyr has access to the latest technology. For example, it uses lithium sulfur Li-S batteries, which have a specific capacity twice as high as those available on the market.
This year, the mighty Facebook entered the game, having previously acquired the British company Ascenta, which developed the giant high-altitude drone Aquila. In June 2016, Aquila made its first, so far 90-minute flight. About Russian developments in the field of atmospheric satellites for a long time nothing was heard until August 2016.
On August 2, 2016, news appeared that Russia had successfully tested an unmanned vehicle that stayed in the air for more than 50 hours at altitudes of up to 9 km. Deputy general director Advanced Research Foundation Igor Denisov announced that an experimental flight of a scale model was made as part of the Owl project, implemented by the Advanced Research Foundation and Tiber. And a week later we sat in the Moscow office of Tiber and asked project manager Yuri Tytsyk and chief designer Vyacheslav Shpilevsky about technical details.
New approach
The idea of an airplane with a flexible wing came to Yuri’s mind two years ago. He shared the idea with his gliding friends: almost the entire Sova development team came from gliding clubs, and this can be seen in the project. His friends supported him, and without delay, Yuri and Vyacheslav made the first model from polystyrene foam with a wingspan of two meters. Touching footage of the first launches, which took place in the courtyard of the house, has been preserved. The model flew, and how! This is how the core of the team was formed - Yuri became the project manager, Vyacheslav Shpilevsky became the chief designer, and Alexey Stratilatov took up the task of integrating his control system into new scheme aircraft, electronic components and autopilots. Over the past couple of years, the guys have made about twenty prototypes. A year ago, the project was supported by the Foundation for Advanced Research, and in September a full-size device with a wingspan of 28.5 m should take off.
Tied by one thread
How do atmospheric satellites, which must remain in the air for months, behave in the sky? During the day, they charge their batteries through solar panels and gain the highest possible altitude, accumulating potential energy. After sunset, they must lose altitude as slowly as possible, using energy sparingly—flying energy tankers have not yet been invented. Therefore, the devices must have aerodynamics at the level of the best gliders, and even better, surpass them. One of the main methods of increasing aerodynamic efficiency (how many meters an aircraft can fly when falling by one meter) is wing extension (the ratio of the wing span to the average width). Only three record gliders in the world have this value exceeding 50 units, and this is practically the limit. With the classic layout, the wing is prevented from breaking by the spar - a powerful force element located along the entire length of the wing and absorbing the bending moment. The longer the wing, the heavier the spar, and even modern carbon fiber composites do not save the situation. And the wing is protected from twisting by a powerful skin. Any textbook on aircraft design clearly states that as the linear dimensions of an aircraft increase, its mass increases in a cube, which is why scaling beautiful openwork prototype models to real sizes often leads to disasters. That is why we did not see a full-size Solara designed according to the classical scheme.
Yuri Tytsyk’s idea was unusual - to make a flexible wing without classic spars and torsion-sensitive skin. Has anyone heard of an albatross's wings breaking due to stress in flight? But these birds fly in a stormy wind. Conventional aircraft avoid this, not to mention experimental or record-breaking aircraft. Nature clearly suggests the use of “flexible solutions”. Birds also do not have ailerons—they twist the entire wing to turn.
“Here in the photo the three of us are holding the plane,” Yuri opens the file on the computer. “If the two people on the edges let go, it will break.” The device is flexible and fragile. We even broke it several times while carrying it. But this doesn’t happen in flight.” Vyacheslav Shpilevsky is trying to explain the idea to me in accessible images: “Our device is like a school of birds, the tips of their wings are tied together to make it easier for them to keep their distance.” Essentially, the “Owl” is three aircraft flying in a very, very tight formation. More dense than the legendary Swifts fly. And if they break formation, the plane will fall apart. The flight of this device scheme became possible thanks to electronics, based on the autopilot created by Alexey, and unique algorithms written by Vyacheslav.
The Owl also does not have ailerons - the classic aerodynamic controls on the trailing edge of the wing that regulate the aircraft's roll angle. The roll is controlled by horizontal stabilizers on the rear fuselages of the side buildings. The tail of the central body is responsible for heading and pitch. The Sova has two electric motors. “The more motors, the more propellers, and the more there are, the smaller their diameter and the lighter they are. — Yuri has simple and logical answers to everything. “In addition, the motors compensate for the weight of the tail booms with stabilizers.”
Planer genes
Recalling the glider roots of the creators, I ask whether the device uses updrafts. Do they gain altitude automatically? “Now we have implemented an algorithm for centering the upstream flow. If the device encounters an area of rising currents, it makes a turn, shifting to an area where the rate of climb is higher,” Yuri clearly demonstrates the glider’s maneuver with his hands, “and automatically works out the flow to the very edge of the clouds. Updrafts operate up to the height of the lower edge of cumulus clouds - about 2000 m. If the flow disappears, it continues to fly further according to the program. He still doesn’t know how to independently search for rising currents, and no one knows how to do it now. But this is rather our interest as glider pilots, because the Owl spends most of its time above the clouds, where there are almost no thermal updrafts. We also used thermals to test the survivability of the device in a turbulent atmosphere - they shake noticeably.”
During the entire flight, the charge of the Owl’s batteries did not fall below 30%, and I ask the question that I was going to ask at the very beginning of the conversation: if there was such an energy reserve, why didn’t they set a new record? “We simply didn’t have such a task,” Yuri Tytsyk smiles. “And in order to find out the ability of the energy system to operate autonomously, two charge-discharge cycles are enough.”
In April 2017, billionaire Viktor Vekselberg assured Vladimir Putin that the Renova group of companies was able to create an aircraft powered exclusively by solar energy, and at the same time set a world record with its help. What has changed over the past year?
Fedor Konyukhov on board the flying laboratory Stemme 12. Photo by Denis Belozerov
On July 26, 2016, Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Becard completed the first ever circumnavigation of the world on an aircraft powered solely by solar energy, Solar Impulse 2. It took the Solar Impulse 2 crew just over a year, 117 hours and 51 minutes, to circle the globe. flight from Japan to Hawaii set a record for the longest solar-powered flight. The Russian team of the Albatross project intends to break the Swiss record. They plan to fly 33,000 km around the world solely on solar energy without using fossil fuels and without stopping in a week.
When to expect a flight
The project is being implemented in three stages, and now Albatross is in the first of them: the project team is testing technological solutions on a flying laboratory - the Stemme S12 aircraft. The key technological components of the future solar glider will be flexible solar heterojunction panels and hybrid energy storage devices. These panels, installed on the Stemme S12 aircraft, will be tested for resistance to different weather conditions over the course of a year, low temperatures and pressure. Then it will be the turn of the second stage - the design and construction of a glider for a record flight, taking into account the data obtained during testing. Finally, the third and final stage will be the round-the-world flight itself.
The Russian glider should take off in 2020, and it will be piloted by traveler Fyodor Konyukhov, who has already completed five circumnavigations of the world and, in particular, set a record by flying a hot air balloon around the Earth in 268 hours. Now Konyukhov is becoming accustomed to the status of an aviator and is undergoing training as a pilot at the Diamond Aviation Training Center in Minsk.
The cost of the project is still difficult to predict; the budget may change due to many reasons, the main ones being the technological component and unforeseen logistics costs. The technological investor of the project was the Renova group of companies.
Flying laboratory Stemme S12. Photo by Denis Belozerov
“We are creating the world's first flying laboratory in the field of photovoltaics. This year we are planning flights in a variety of conditions: in the foothills of Elbrus, Kamchatka, the Urals, and in the Moscow region. All this will help to collect more data on the operation of flexible solar panels in a wide variety of unexpected conditions,” says Mikhail Lifshits, director for development of high-tech assets of the Renova group of companies, chairman of the board of directors of JSC Rotek.
The flying laboratory is a unique testing complex that allows you to observe the operation of solar panels and storage devices under conditions in which no one has tested them before. In fact, the Albatross project team today acts as pioneers.
What technologies are used
To create an energy-autonomous aircraft, you first need a highly efficient energy source. Especially for the Albatross project, the Scientific and Technical Center for Thin Film Technologies in Energy at MIPT. Ioffe developed a technology for manufacturing so-called flexible heterojunction solar cells with an efficiency of more than 22%. Such cells combine the advantages of thin-film and polycrystalline technologies - they are able to capture diffuse sunlight and can be installed on the entire surface of the aircraft.
The energy storage system will be based on hybrid drives, which consist of lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors. The former will provide high storage capacity, and the latter will be an effective buffer to protect against increased loads and overheating of lithium-ion batteries. Supercapacitors are developed and produced by the TEEMP company, part of the Renova group. Thanks to their special design and the use of specially developed electrolytes and cathode material, TEEMP supercapacitors are lightweight and operate at extreme temperatures (up to -65 °C).
Such highly efficient energy sources will help avoid a fairly common problem in aviation - “thermal runaway”, in which the storage device short-circuits due to its high temperature. Overheating of batteries on the route Japan - Hawaii caused the suspension of the Solar Impulse 2 flight for almost 9 months.
What then
Unmanned aerial vehicles using solar energy can replace satellites. Source of energy for electrical systems aircraft propulsion will be a combination of solar panels and a small but efficient engine. Further development of this kind of technology will make it possible to use electric propulsion developments for freight and passenger transportation, which, in turn, will lead to saving resources and preserving the environment.