Two Swiss pilots flew a solar plane nearly 1,200 kilometers across China yesterday to complete the latest stage of their record-setting around-the-world journey. They hope to be the first to circumnavigate the globe in a solar plane.

The team behind the mission boast that the plane, the Solar Impulse 2, is "the only airplane of perpetual endurance, able to fly day and night on solar power, without a drop of fuel."

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Solar Impulse 2 arrived in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing about 11:40pm after completing a 17-and-a-half-hour flight from the southwestern city of Chongqing, reports Shanghai Daily. The plane had been held up in Chongqing by repeated weather delays, and after one of its co-pilots had to return to Europe to be treated for migraines.

Pilot Bertrand Piccard was in the cockpit at the control as the plane took off at 6:08 am, the team's organizers said in a statement. The plane had arrived in China from Myanmar on March 31, and had been scheduled to only make only a brief stop, but was held up by repeated delays. Co-pilot Andre Borschberg is being treated in Switzerland for migraine problems.

"It was necessary for me ... to take a break in order to ensure the future of the project," Borschberg said via Twitter.

A spokesman for the team, Marc Baumgarten, said that the plane's departure had at first been put off because of heavy cross winds. Last Thursday, another departure attempt had to be postponed "due to a narrow window for the landing in Nanjing," the organizers said on Twitter.

The team behind Solar Impulse 2 is trying to promote the use of renewable or "green" energy. The plane is the successor to the Solar Impulse, which made a 26-hour flight in 2010 to demonstrate that could store enough power in its batteries to fly without the sun at night.

The plane has already set two world records for manned solar-powered flight on its trip so far, reports BBC News. The first was for the longest distance covered on a single trip, which was the 1,468 km leg between Muscat, Oman, and Ahmedabad, India. The second was for a groundspeed of 117 knots (216km/h; 135mph), which was achieved during the leg into Mandalay, Myanmar, from Varanasi, India.

TagsSolar Plane Completes 1, 200km Flight to Nanjing in First-Ever Round-the-World Flight, solar impulse 2, solar plane, bertrand piccard, andre borschberg, green energy renewable energy, flight