Lilium achieves first systems power-on milestone for its in-production Lilium Jet

Lil­i­um has com­plet­ed the first sys­tems pow­er-on mile­stone of its all-elec­tric Lil­i­um Jet.

The suc­cess­ful test pro­ce­dure on the first in-pro­duc­tion Lil­i­um Jet, MSN 1, rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment on the path to first flight and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

This test con­firms that the air­craft is being built in accor­dance with Lilium’s plat­form design and the flight sys­tems are func­tion­ing cor­rect­ly.  

MSN 1 is due to become Lilium’s lab test air­craft, or ‘iron­bird’. It will be a ful­ly func­tion­al air­craft and key asset for the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram, being used to prove safe­ty of flight and com­pli­ance with air­wor­thi­ness require­ments.

The sec­ond Lil­i­um Jet, MSN 2, is also cur­rent­ly in final assem­bly and the first air­craft Lil­i­um intends to fly with a pilot on board in ear­ly 2025.

Pro­duc­tion of MSN 3 fuse­lage is under­way at the sup­pli­er. Lil­i­um intends to fly a total of six test air­craft up to type-cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and entry into ser­vice, tar­get­ed for 2026.  

Stephen Vel­la­cott, Lil­i­um CTO, said: “Pow­er-on is an impor­tant qual­i­ty gate in the pro­duc­tion process of any com­mer­cial air­craft. The two Lil­i­um Jets now on our final assem­bly line, and those to come, will be con­form­ing air­craft, built to the spec­i­fi­ca­tions of our design orga­ni­za­tion, accord­ing to doc­u­ment­ed process­es and in line with estab­lished aero­space pro­ce­dures.

“When it comes to air­craft pro­duc­tion, process con­trol, repeata­bil­i­ty, trace­abil­i­ty, and above all safe­ty is para­mount. Achiev­ing this first pow­er-on mile­stone demon­strates that we’re on track.” 

At pow­er-on, high-volt­age (900 Volts) is applied to the air­craft and con­vert­ed to sup­ply the low-volt­age elec­tri­cal and avion­ics sys­tems – includ­ing cock­pit dis­play, flight con­trols, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, nav­i­ga­tion, and sur­veil­lance sys­tems.

This mile­stone cor­re­sponds to the cus­tom­ary pow­er-on accep­tance test pro­ce­dure used in con­ven­tion­al com­mer­cial air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ing.  

In August this year, Lil­i­um suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed the first phase of elec­tri­cal inte­gra­tion test­ing at the company’s ded­i­cat­ed elec­tri­cal pow­er sys­tem lab (EPSL), a test rig that repli­cates the Lil­i­um Jet’s full pow­er­train, from bat­tery pack to engine, out­side the air­craft in a con­trolled test envi­ron­ment.

Lil­i­um has so far suc­cess­ful­ly test­ed sev­er­al core elec­tri­cal func­tion­al­i­ties at the EPSL, includ­ing high volt­age dis­tri­b­u­tion, low volt­age con­ver­sion and dis­tri­b­u­tion, health report­ing, and charg­ing sys­tems.