I know what happened to the original plane, but what I really want to know is what happened to the program? Does it live on in other research? NASA, IIRC, flew Helios, a solar powered airplane in about 2004. The original one crashed, but it seems to me that it has great potential as an atmospheric satellite. Was this idea pursued? Why or why not?
Development continued - latest iteration is Sunglider:
NASA is pretty well done with that stuff. It’s now proven tech, so no longer their bailiwick.
There are about a dozen outfits worldwide building solar glider prototypes. Here’s another that flew their first low altitude test just a last week: