Urgent: Funding needed to launch a Solar Ship that will deliver supplies to remote African areas. The project—currently crowdfunding on IndieGoGo—has less than three days to raise almost $1 million or the mission will be bust.

Solar Ship is a hybrid aircraft which gains its lift from buoyant gas as well as aerodynamics. Its unique wing-ship design allows take-offs and landings in areas as short as a soccer field—making the ship ideal to deliver supplies in rugged, remote areas of the world. The Solar Ship design is also revolutionary in the way it provides large surface areas for solar electric power, allowing transportation in remote areas that lack fossil-fuel resources.

Since 1992 Solar Ship designers have been involved in dozens of charitable projects delivering much-needed cargo to northern Canada, eastern and southern Africa and Madagascar. The prototype for the current Solar Ship was built and flown in 2009, and three additional prototypes have been flown since 2010 with regulatory approval. The IndieGoGo campaign will fund Solar Ship’s first mission to Africa.

Should the mission obtain the needed funding, it will take off from Cape Town and stop every 500 kilometers to pick up new medical supplies from Solar Ships partners and deliver them to surrounding villages. Solar Ship will continue on the course 10 times over 40 days and finish in Africa’s Great Lakes region in Burundi—but only if the project obtains the needed funding.

Sponsors of Solar Ship will be invited to place their own logos and messages on the ship in exchange for their IndieGoGo pledge. Sponsors can be individuals, organizations and corporations.

Solar Ship is currently accepted pledges on IndieGoGo for as little as $11. For a $25 pledge, the backer’s name will be placed on Solar Ship’s Facebook, Twitter and Web pages. Backers who pledge $33 will receive a Solar Ship T-shirt and for $45 a model of the Solar Ship. Other gifts are available for higher pledge amounts, up to $125 where the backer will earn logo space on the Solar Ship. From there, the large the pledge, the larger the logo space provided. And should a backer decide to pledge $100,000, he or she will be invited to join the Solar Ship crew on its African mission.

Again, the need for these pledges has become urgent as the project ends at 11:59 p.m. PT Jan. 25 and thus far has received less than $8,000 in total pledges.

[Image via Solar Ship]