PAYERNE, Switzerland, July 8, 2010 (Xinhua) --

A Swiss solar-powered plane has made aviation history by flying non-stop solely on solar energy for more than 26 hours, including through the night.

The Solar Impulse HB-SIA, which took off at dawn Wednesday, successfully landed at 9 am (0700 GMT) on Thursday to the cheers of a crowd of supporters who came to the Payerne airfield in western Switzerland to celebrate this great milestone, the Solar Impulse project team said in a statement.

This is the first ever manned solar-powered aircraft in aviation history to fly through the night with no fuel.

"I've been a pilot for 40 years now, but this flight has been the most incredible one of my flying career," said Andre Borschberg, a former jet fighter pilot and CEO of the Solar Impulse project.

"I have just flown more than 26 hours without using a drop of fuel and without causing any pollution," Borschberg said after the plane touched down.

This flight is not only the longest, but also the highest in the history of solar aviation, as it reached a record alltitude of 8,500 meters.

A 70-strong team, together with 80 partners, took seven years of hard work, calculations, simulations and tests to build this completely new carbon fiber prototype, with its wingspan equivalent to that of an Airbus A340 (63.4 meters) and weighing about the same as a middle-sized car (1600 kg).

  The solar-powered HB-SIA prototype airplane is successfully landing after its first successful night flight attempt at Payerne airport on Thursday, July 8, 2010. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

More than 12,000 solar panels are built into its wing, supplying renewable energy during the day to the electric engines, while at the same time charging the lithium-polymer batteries used for flying at night.

The success of this first night flight is crucial for the further course of the Solar Impulse project, which was initiated by adventurer Bertrand Piccard, who made the first non-stop hot air balloon flight around the world in 1999.

"Now that the HB-SIA's ability to remain flying at night using solar energy stored during the day has been proved, we can start pushing the human and technological limits further," the statement said.

The next important milestones for Solar Impulse will be the crossing the Atlantic and the around the world flights, using a second prototype which goes into construction this summer, it added.

But Piccard, the current president of the project, stressed that the final goal of the team was not to beat records or to make a globe-trotting trip with solar energy alone.

"It's much more than just an aeronautical adventure. It's a technological demonstration of what we can offer society in terms of renewable energy," Piccard was quoted by the official Swissinfo.ch news website as saying.

"We want to promote the implementation of the same technologies in cars, heating systems, computers, air conditioning, etc," he said.

Editor: Lu Hui