Skydiving from Space – Part II – Jump Wrap-Up!

Part of our Series: Crazy Cool Stuff from Around the Web

Red Bull and Austrian Felix Baumgartner have successfully engineered the world’s highest skydive attempt. The project was five years in the making, and even the final days came with plenty of suspenseful moments to build the world’s anticipation.

(see Skydiving from Space – Part I)

Targeted records to break:

• World’s highest manned balloon flight – previous record 113,740 ft
• World’s highest skydive attempt – 102,800 ft held by Joe Kittinger, Flight Operations And Safety Chief of the Red Bull Stratos Team
• Worlds longest freefall – 4:36 seconds
• Worlds fastest decent – 614 mph

Due to launch on October the 9th, the team was delayed by several wind gusts which damaged the balloon. After several days of waiting, the 14th would be “jump day”. Felix began his ascent around 11 am, the total travel time taking over 2 hours, to a final altitude of 128,000 feet.

During his upward travel, he began having issues with his heated face mask which was fogging up and freezing to ice, this was considered an “abort-able” issue, but they decided to battle-through and proceed anyway.

After a 30 point safety check, Felix was ready to jump from “the top of the world”, making a perfect exit from the capsule, from which he could see the entire curvature of the earth.

After a clean exit, he began to experience the worst-case-scenario, a “multi-axis-flat-spin”,  which he was flailing and tumbling out of control for more than 40 seconds. He could have pulled his drouge shoot to right himself, which would have made it impossible to break the speed record, a mission a failure. He battled through the deadly tumble and eventually righted himself. After situating his body into the bullet-position he reached speeds in excess of the sound barrier, 768 mph.  No human has reached this velocity, also known as “Mach 1” without the aide of a capsule or fuselage.

Felix Baumgartner Records Broken in Red Bull Stratos Jump:

• World’s highest manned balloon flight – previous record 113,740 ft 128,098 feet
• World’s highest skydive attempt – 102,800 ft 128,098 feet
• Worlds longest freefall – 4:36 seconds ( Felix only had a 4:20 freefall time due to speed of desent and 5,000 foot elevation to open shoot)
• Worlds fastest freefall – 614 mph 834 mph

Congrats Felix on your successful jump from space! Watch the video below.If your search for an web enabled product configurator is starting to feel as complex as this trip to space, you need to take a look at our ebook made for industrial manufacturers like you.