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On October 24, 2014, Alan Eustace broke the world record for the highest balloon flight and skydive of all time, releasing himself from a balloon at 135,908 feet.
On October 24, 2014, Eustace made a jump from the
Details
In 2011, Eustace decided to pursue a stratosphere jump and met withTaber MacCallum
Taber MacCallum is the co-founder and co-CEO of Space Perspective, a human spaceflight company planning to take people and payloads to the edge of space by balloon, and the former chairman of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF). He is co ...
, one of the founding members of Biosphere 2
University of Arizona Biosphere 2 is an American Earth system science research facility located in Oracle, Arizona. Its mission is to serve as a center for research, outreach, teaching, and lifelong learning about Earth, its living systems, and i ...
, to begin preparations for the project. Over the next three years, the Paragon Space Development technical team designed and redesigned many of the components of his parachute and life-support system. The Paragon team integrated systems for the Stratospheric Explorer mission code named StratEx Space Dive.
On October 24, 2014, Eustace made a jump from the stratosphere
The stratosphere () is the second-lowest layer of the atmosphere of Earth, located above the troposphere and below the mesosphere. The stratosphere is composed of stratified temperature zones, with the warmer layers of air located higher ...
, breaking Felix Baumgartner
Felix Baumgartner (; born 20 April 1969) is an Austrian skydiver, daredevil and BASE jumper. He is widely known for jumping to Earth from a helium balloon from the stratosphere on 14 October 2012 and landing in New Mexico, United States, as p ...
's 2012 world record. The launch-point for his jump was from an abandoned runway in Roswell, New Mexico
Roswell () is a city in and the county seat of Chaves County, New Mexico, Chaves County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 48,422 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in New Mexico, fi ...
, where he began his gas balloon
A gas balloon is a balloon that rises and floats in the air because it is filled with a gas lighter than air (such as helium or hydrogen). When not in flight, it is tethered to prevent it from flying away and is sealed at the bottom to prevent t ...
-powered ascent early that morning. He reached a reported maximum altitude of , but the final number submitted to the World Air Sports Federation
The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk of a "plu ...
was . The balloon used for the feat was a zero-pressure balloon manufactured by the Balloon Facility of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a leading research Institute under the Department of Atomic Energy of the Government of India. It is a public deemed university located at Navy Nagar, Colaba in Mumbai. It also has a centres in ...
, Hyderabad, India. Eustace in his pressure suit hung tethered under the balloon, without the kind of capsule used by Felix Baumgartner. Eustace started his fall by using an explosive device to separate from the helium balloon.
His descent to Earth lasted 4 minutes and 27 seconds and stretched nearly with peak speeds exceeding , setting new world records for the highest free-fall jump and total free-fall distance . However, because Eustace's jump involved a drogue parachute
A drogue parachute, also called drag chute, is a parachute designed for deployment from a rapidly moving object. It can be used for various purposes, such as to decrease speed, to provide control and stability, as a pilot parachute to deploy ...
, while Baumgartner's did not, their vertical speed and free-fall distance records remain in different categories.
Unlike Baumgartner, Eustace, a twin-engine jet pilot, was not widely known as a daredevil prior to his jump.
Eustace's world record jump was featured in two episodes of ''STEM in 30
Stem or STEM most commonly refers to:
* Plant stem, a structural axis of a vascular plant
* Crown group#Stem groups, Stem group
* Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
Stem or STEM can also refer to:
Language and writing
* Word stem, ...
'', a television show geared towards middle-school students by the National Air and Space Museum
The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States, dedicated to history of aviation, human flight and space exploration.
Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, ...
.
References
{{Reflist Space diving Balloons (aeronautics) Parachuting in the United States