The Solarstratos, a Swiss stratospheric awning, reached a personal record high of 8,224 meters, but lacked the current world record for a solar energy-driven flight.
The Swiss project team had planned an official attempt to exceed 10,000 meters before 8 August 2025, with the plane that it has been developing since 2014. The milestone was part of his plan to reach an announced target height of 25,000 meters.
Although the overall weather conditions were favorable, the absence of warm air killings forced crucial in the final ascension phase, the pilot Raphaël Domjan to postpone the attempt to save the battery for better conditions.
This week Domjan reached 8,224 meters during a flight of about four and a half hours. The height remains under both the goal of 10,000 meters and the current world record of 9,235 meters, set by solar impulse pilot André Borschberg.
The two -seater of Solarstratos will try again the climb in the coming days, the team announced on social media. The aircraft remains exposed to sunlight to charge its batteries, a process that is exclusively carried out with solar energy and under official notarial supervision.
The aircraft measures 8.5 meters long, has a wingspan of 24.8 meters and weighs 450 kilograms. It is covered with 22 square meters of solar panels with 25% efficiency and approximately 5 kWp output, which feed an electric motor from lithium-ion batteries.
“Being a pioneer, an adventurer, tries something that you are not sure will succeed,” Domjan told Agence France Presse (AFP) last week. “We are going to try again and again until we reach 10,000 meters. It is important to show what we can achieve with solar energy, what we can do with electricity.”
