The ground-breaking, globe-trotting experimental aircraft touched down in the states just before midnight Saturday, landing in Mountain View, Calif. after doing a victory lap of sorts over the city of San Francisco and its iconic Golden Gate Bridge.
"It's a new era. It's not science fiction. It's today," pilot Bertrand Piccard told CNN.
The Swiss explorer added: "clean technologies can do the impossible."
Solar Impulse 2 arrived in the US after a perilous three-day flight across a huge swath of the Pacific Ocean.
During the flight, Piccard and fellow Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg slept only 20 minutes at a time, spending the rest of their time, doing interviews, and interacting with their control center, which is located in Monaco.
"It was very active," Piccard told reporters.
Solar Impulse 2 began its around-the-world odyssey taking off from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, in March 2015.
Since then it has made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China, Japan and Hawaii.
At the moment, the itinerary for the Solar Impulse 2 and its crew is for them to make at least three stops in the United States before it heads out over the Atlantic Ocean bound for either Europe or North Africa.
Much will depend on factors beyond the pilots' control -- namely the weather.
There is currently talk that after leaving Mountain View, Calif. -- the heart of Silicon Valley -- the Solar Impulse 2 will head southeast, to Phoenix, Ariz.
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