Categories: Space FlightVideos

Watch Felix Baumgartner’s Test Jump

In preparation for his jump from from 36,500 meters (120,000 feet) sometime this summer, Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner took a practice jump yesterday from Roswell, New Mexico. The Red Bull Stratos Mission just posted the video of the jump — well, actually everything but the jump (you’ll see the preparations and post landing in this video). I’m sure the best footage is being saved for a documentary about the mission that is being done by the BBC and National Geographic. But this taste of the action whets your whistle for the big jump, when Baumgartner could become the first person to go supersonic outside a vehicle. He plans one more test jump, from 27,400 meters (90,000 feet) before attempting the full 36,500 meters to break the record for the longest freefall. According to Red Bull Stratos, the ‘launch window’ for the big jump opens in July and extends until the beginning of October.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/

Recent Posts

Dinkinesh's Moonlet is Only 2-3 Million Years Old

Last November, NASA's Lucy mission conducted a flyby of the asteroid Dinkinish, one of the…

11 hours ago

The Universe Could Be Filled With Ultralight Black Holes That Can't Die

Steven Hawking famously calculated that black holes should evaporate, converting into particles and energy over…

17 hours ago

Starlink on Mars? NASA Is Paying SpaceX to Look Into the Idea

NASA has given the go-ahead for SpaceX to work out a plan to adapt its…

1 day ago

Did You Hear Webb Found Life on an Exoplanet? Not so Fast…

The JWST is astronomers' best tool for probing exoplanet atmospheres. Its capable instruments can dissect…

2 days ago

Vera Rubin’s Primary Mirror Gets its First Reflective Coating

First light for the Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO) is quickly approaching and the telescope is…

2 days ago

Two Stars in a Binary System are Very Different. It's Because There Used to be Three

A beautiful nebula in the southern hemisphere with a binary star at it's center seems…

3 days ago