The plane took of at 8:03 a.m. ET (5:03 a.m. PT) for a trip to Phoenix that is expected to last 16 hours and 23 minutes. The top of the wings are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries onboard the aircraft.
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Video from cameras aboard the aircraft as well as on the ground at the Goodyear airport showed the Solar Impulse as it flew through the night sky enroute to its safe touch down southwest of Phoenix.
The Swiss team hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where their journey began in March 2015 as part of campaign to bolster support for clean energy technologies.
Borschberg did not reveal the next destination as the team makes its way east toward NY, but said the team expected to be in Arizona “at least one day”.
After it reaches its planned next destination of Phoenix, Arizona, which will involve a 1158-kilometer (720-mile) flight over the Mojave Desert, the plane will make just two more stops in the United States before crossing the Atlantic.
The Pacific crossing was the most risky due to a lack of landing sites in the event of an emergency.
Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg is at the helm of the plane, which began its circumnavigation of the globe past year. The plane weighs more than 2.5 tons (2,300 kilos), or about as much as an SUV.
The aircraft took off from Mountain View in northern California shortly after 5 a.m. Monday on the 16-hour flight to Phoenix.
However, the batteries suffered some heat damage in the process, requiring repairs, grounding the plane for over nine months. Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard piloted the craft from Hawaii to California.
Solar Impulse 2 is an upgraded version of an airplane that made a coast-to-coast trip across America in 2013. The pilots plan two more stops before reaching NY, where they will prepare for the Atlantic crossing to Europe or North Africa.
The carbon-fiber plane, with a wingspan exceeding that of a Boeing 747 and the weight of a family vehicle, is unlikely to set any speed or altitude records.
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Theoretically, it could stay aloft for months at a time, but the needs of the human pilot mean flights are limited to no more than a couple of days.
