Video | Google executive makes historic 42,000-metre skydive from the edge of space
Alan Eustace breaks the sound barrier, with his freefall making a sonic boom on the ground, in a record-breaking feat of space engineering
Google executive Alan Eustace broke the sound barrier and set several skydiving records over the southern New Mexico desert in the US after taking a big leap from the edge of space.
After nearly three years of intense planning, development and training, Eustace, 57, began his ascent via a high-altitude, helium-filled balloon just as the sun was rising. It took more than two hours to hit an altitude of 41,419 metres, from which he separated himself from a balloon and started plummeting back to earth. Wearing his specially designed spacesuit, Eustace hit a top velocity of 1,322 km/h during a freefall that lasted 4½minutes.
The supersonic skydive happened with little fanfare, out of the media spotlight, unlike the 2012 attempt by daredevil Felix Baumgartner and the Red Bull Stratos team. Baumgartner, who was taken aloft in a capsule with the help of millions of dollars in sponsorships, had set the previous altitude record by jumping from 39,045 metres.
"This has opened up endless possibilities for humans to explore previously seldom visited parts of our stratosphere," Grant Anderson, Paragon president and CEO, said of Eustace's jump.
The technology that has gone into developing the balloon, the spacesuit and the other systems used in Friday's launch will be used to advance commercial spaceflight, namely efforts by Arizona-based World View Enterprises to take paying tourists up in a high-altitude balloon and luxury capsule by 2016.
Jim Hayhurst, director of competition at the United States Parachute Association, was the jump's official observer. He said Eustace deployed a drogue parachute that gave him incredible stability and control despite the Mach 1.23 speed reached during the freefall.
Eustace did not feel it when he broke the sound barrier, but the ground crew certainly heard the resulting sonic boom, Hayhurst said. "He just said it was a fabulous view. He was thrilled," Hayhurst said of his conversation with Eustace after he landed.
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