SolarStratos, a mission envisioned by Raphaël Domjan and an airplane designed by Calin Gologan, returns to the skies after suffering a literal break in its program in 2018. During a series of tests that put increasingly heavy loads on the wings, its left wing broke with what was called a “technical damage.” This type of breakage during stress testing is not uncommon, especially on what are special machines such as SolarStratos and Solar Impulse. Solar Impulse 2 suffered a similar break when its newly-designed wing was being tested. As noted, this type of setback takes the team back to the drawing board, but also besets them with new reflections on their ongoing decisions. If it were easy, everyone would be …
