Piccard and Borschberg talk with Ars. Video shot and edited by Jennifer Hahn. (video link)

NEW YORK—Early Saturday morning, in the midst of a round-the-world flight, Solar Impulse 2 made the short hop from Pennsylvania to New York City. After gliding past the Statue of Liberty, it made its way to John F. Kennedy Airport, where it will remain until the weather permits it to start the next leg of its journey. After spending the morning soaking up the sunlight to charge its batteries, the plane was wheeled into one of Kennedy’s massive hangers to give the press a chance to meet both it and the pilots who are taking it around the world.

This is the second of the team’s solar-powered craft we’ve been able to see up close, and it’s not a radical departure from the earlier one, which had completed a flight across the US by landing at JFK. Solar Impulse 2 is slightly larger and a bit more robust looking than its sister, but the general outlines are quite similar: a four-engined, glider-shaped craft, with most of its upward-facing surfaces covered in solar panels.