Watch Live: Felix Baumgartner's Record Breaking Jump Attempt

By Nancy Atkinson - October 09, 2012 05:36 PM UTC | Space Exploration

UPDATE:

The launch/jump attempt for Felix Baumgartner and the Red Bull Stratos mission on October 9 has been aborted due to winds at the launch site in Roswell, New Mexico. At first, there was a 5 hour weather delay, then a radio system malfunction which was fixed, and then the winds became too high. Winds have to relatively benign for the huge balloon to take off. The balloon used for this mission is three times larger than any other human balloon flight.

Felix Baumgartner will leap from nearly 37 km (23 miles, 120,000 feet), attempting to not only break the sound barrier with his body, but also break the record for the longest freefall

We'll provide updates and post the live video feed for future attempts. The weather for the rest of the week remains "iffy," however.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com