The plane began by performing a flight demonstration over Rabat. A week after landing in Morocco, this first plane designed to fly without fuel or polluting emissions will fly over the future site of the first power plant of the Ouarzazate solar complex. In a statement to MAP before the plane's take-off, the Chairman of the Board of the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN), Mustapha Bakkoury, indicated that "this stage is the most symbolic, the most exciting and the most difficult, as the plane has to fly over the Atlas mountain range with risks of wind. Therefore, the flight will be slower".

The cockpit will experience, for the first time, a mountainous and desert climate, a joint statement from Solar Impulse and the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (MASEN) had noted, specifying that "this flight will certainly be the most difficult the plane has ever performed". Due to the arid and hot nature of the climate, as well as the proximity to the Atlas mountain range, atmospheric conditions are very turbulent and persist until late at night.

To prepare for the landing, pilot André Borschberg, who will perform the round trip to Ouarzazate, went there a few days earlier to scout the area. Solar Impulse is hosted in Morocco by MASEN, whose mission is to develop the Moroccan solar programme. Morocco has the ambition to build, by 2020, five solar parks to reach a capacity of 2,000 megawatts, allowing for the eventual avoidance of the emission of 3.7 million tonnes of CO2. Seven years of work were necessary for a team of 70 people and 80 partners to build this carbon fibre plane, with a wingspan of an Airbus A340 (63.4 m) and the weight of an average family car (1,600 kg).