The Austrian athlete hoped to top that by exceeding 1,110 km/h - the speed of sound at the targeted altitude - and freefalling for five minutes and 35 seconds, from 123,000 feet above sea level. Air Force colonel, fell for four minutes and 36 seconds and reached a maximum speed of 988 km/h before opening his parachute. The current record for a high-altitude skydive was set in 1960 by Joe Kittinger, who jumped from a balloon flying at 31,333 metres, Kittinger, a retired U.S. The air pressure in front builds, creating a shock wave - and the "cracking" sound known as a sonic boom. Once an object reaches this sonic speed, the sound waves it produces aren't fast enough to keep up with it. At sea level, this speed is about 1,200 km/h. The sound barrier is the point at which an object starts to travel faster than the speed of sound. He spoke to mission control throughout his fall and glided safely to the ground - coming up on his knees and pumping his fists in the air. His family, at mission control, leapt to their feet and clapped in relief. However, he opened his chute around the 4:18 mark. Before the two-minute mark, he stabilized and the crew on ground broke into cheers and whistles.īaumgartner, 43, had been training for five years for the jump, during which he was expected to be in a free fall for some five minutes before opening a parachute at 5,000 feet above ground. Mission control was silent for the first minute as Baumgartner spun around on his way down. The jump from the edge of space was postponed on Monday and Tuesday because of unexpected winds, but the weather was deemed calm enough for his latest attempt. "On the step I felt that the whole world's watching. test pilot Chuck Yeager's successful attempt to become the first man to officially break the sound barrier aboard an airplane.īaumgartner took off from a launch site in Roswell, N.M., on Sunday in a pressurized capsule carried by a 55-storey ultra-thin helium balloon and took nearly three hours to climb into the stratosphere.īaumgartner's descent after the free fall went smoothly. The Austrian man's feat also marked the 65th anniversary of U.S. "The most exciting moment was when I was standing at the door above the world." "Sometimes we have to get really high to see how small we are," Baumgartner told reporters shortly after the jump. No one has ever reached that speed in a free fall jump.īaumgartner, now known as 'Fearless Felix', has broken the record for the highest free fall ever, the fastest free fall and the highest manned balloon ride, said organizers. That amounts to Mach 1.24, which is faster than the speed of sound. In a journey that lasted over nine minutes, he fell at a speed of 1,342.8 km/h, which broke the sound barrier - 1,200 km/h. Extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner made a death-defying free fall that made him the first skydiver to break the sound barrier, according to organizers.
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