“NASA's Pathfinder, Pathfinder Plus, Centurion and Helios Prototype were an evolutionary series of solar- and fuel-cell-system-powered unmanned aerial vehicles. AeroVironment, Inc. developed the vehicles under NASA's Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) program. They were built to develop the technologies that would allow long-term, high-altitude aircraft to serve as “atmospheric satellites”, to perform atmospheric research tasks as well as serve as communications platforms”. – Wikipedia

Photo: The solar-electric Helios Prototype flying wing is flies over the Hawaiian islands of Niihau and Lehua during the first solar-powered test flight July 14, 2001 from the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, HI. The 18-hour flight was a functional checkout of the aircraft's systems and performance in preparation for an attempt to reach sustained flight at 100,000 feet altitude later in the summer. (Photo Courtesy of NASA/Getty Images)

Senate pages wear eclipse glasses as they view the moon partially covering the sun during a total solar eclipse, in front of the U.S. Senate on Capitol Hill, Monday, April 8, 2024, in Washington. (Photo by Alex Brandon/AP Photo)

A couple lights a lantern during a celebration, known as “Chaharshanbe Souri”, or Wednesday Feast, marking the eve of the last Wednesday of the solar Persian year, Tuesday, March 19, 2019, in Tehran, Iran. Iran's many woes briefly went up in smoke on Tuesday as Iranians observed a nearly 4,000-year-old Persian tradition known as the Festival of Fire. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

Festival goers participate in a dance class on embracing kinetic intimacy in the dance shala a the Oregon Eclipse Festival, August 20, 2017, at Big Summit Prairie ranch in Oregon' s Ochoco National Forest near the city of Mitchell ahead of the total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017. (Photo by Robyn Beck/AFP Photo)

After their wedding ceremony, groom and bride, Nathan Mauger, Connie Young with family and friends, toast to the solar eclipse from the Rose Garden in Manito Park, Monday, August 21, 2017, in Spokane, Wash. (Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review via AP Photo)

An unmanned Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket lifts off from launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Wednesday, February 11, 2015, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. On board is the Deep Space Climate Observatory, which will head toward a solar-storm lookout point a million miles away. (Photo by John Raoux/AP Photo)

Peruvian shamans holding a poster of Russia's President Vladimir Putin perform a ritual of predictions for the new year at Morro Solar hill in Chorrillos, Lima, Peru, December 29, 2015. The ritual is an end-of-the-year tradition and the shamans called for world peace and wished good luck for the upcoming elections in Peru and the U.S. (Photo by Mariana Bazo/Reuters)

A fledgling solar system containing deep within it enough water vapor to fill all the oceans on Earth five times, located in our Milky Way galaxy about 1,000 light years from Earth in the constellation Perseus. (Photo by Reuters/NASA/JPL-Caltech)