#Longest freefall nasa free#
Several seconds into the free fall, he began to flat spin and there was a lot of concern in mission control, but he suddenly stabilized. "The visor eventually defrosted from power in his suit, so after about 15-20 minutes, Baumgartner leapt from the capsule. During that time, Felix's visor was not defrosting and there was concern the mission would have to be aborted," said Baker. After about an hour delay due to winds, the balloon lifted off shortly after 9:30 a.m., for a two-and-a-half hour journey to the egress point. "The balloon, which took Felix's capsule to 128,000 feet, was filled with 30 million cubic feet of helium. A 20-plus year veteran of the Air Force high-altitude balloon program, Baker watched Baumgartner's historic jump from mission control at the Roswell International Air Center.
"We realized that under the CRADA, we should be able to assist Baumgartner's jump and allow ATA to use our launch equipment for our high-altitude balloon program."įor Red Bull Stratos' two unmanned flights and the three manned missions (Baumgartner's two test jumps and his record-breaking decent), on-site ATA Aerospace staff performed liftoff and capsule-retrieval functions with the support and expertise of AFRL staff members Ed Coca, balloon launch director, and Baker, who ensured pre-and post-operations procedures had been conducted safely and properly. It is a good way to offset costs and take advantage of excess capacity of both the facilities and equipment," said Harold "Vern" Baker, chief, Space and Integration Test Branch, Integrated Experiments and Evaluation Division, AFRL's Space Vehicles Directorate. "The agreement with ATA Aerospace allows a commercial company to use our facilities, evaluate equipment and conduct testing. About 18 months later, the directorate decided to assist the proposed mission, with the reversal attributable to a cooperative research and development agreement signed between the agency and ATA Aerospace. The historic event would not have occurred without the significant participation of the Air Force Research Laboratory's Space Vehicles Directorate and one of its contractors, ATA Aerospace.įive years ago, Red Bull Stratos, which sponsored Baumgartner's near-space jump, approached the directorate about supporting the mission, but the Kirtland-based organization's officials did not believe the activity had enough of a science and technology perspective, so they passed on it. Joe Kittinger's 52-year-old record of the highest free fall by 25,200 feet.
When Baumgartner safely touched down 33 miles east of Roswell, N.M., shortly before noon, he had also achieved another milestone, topping Air Force Col. 14, an international audience watched as Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner egressed from a capsule 128,000 feet above the earth and fell toward the planet reaching speeds of 834 miles per hour, to become the first person to break the sound barrier outside a vehicle. This issue was resolved quickly.KIRTLAND AFB, N.M. The danger of the event was emphasised by the fact that the "live" broadcast had a built-in delay, allowing the public to be spared a gruesome spectacle in the event of tragedy.Īfter the long tension-building ascent, Felix could be heard running through the checklist with Col Kittinger and telling of the unexpected fogging of his visor. The helium-filled balloon took Felix on his two-hour journey into the stratosphere.
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This was enough helium for lift off, but did not fill the balloon envelope to capacity because they needed to leave space to allow the helium to expand while the balloon rose.Īs the air pressure decreased with the balloon's rising altitude, the helium inside it expanded, eventually filling the entire envelope to its full capacity of approximately 850,000 m³ (30 million ft³) at jump altitude. The balloon had around 5,097 m³ (180,000 cu ft) of helium inserted by the crew prior to its launch.
A giant balloon, as tall as the Statue of Liberty when fully inflated and with a capacity of approximately 850,000 m³ (30 million cu ft), carried Felix inside a capsule to an altitude of 38,969.4 m (127,852 ft).
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