At approximately 14h30 South African time, skydiver Felix Baumgartner will attempt the highest, fastest free fall in history – 37 kilometres above Earth.

This jump has both big personal and scientific achievements at stake.

If all goes according to plan, and Baumgartner survives, Nasa could certify a new generation of spacesuits for protecting astronauts, if they ever needed to eject from a spacecraft at 120 000 feet, three times higher than the average cruising altitude of a jetliner.

Baumgartner’s team has calculated that he will reach a speed of 1 110 km/h, and become the first person to break the sound barrier outside of an airplane.

Going out with a bang, the 43-year-old Baumgartner, an Austrian military parachutist and extreme athlete, said this jump will be his last.

Baumgartner’s medical director Dr. Jonathan Clark, says no one actually knows what happens to a body when it breaks the sound barrier. But expects the pressurised spacesuit Baumgartner wears to protect him.

That is really the scientific essence of this mission.

Clark lost his wife, Laurel Clark, in the 2003 Challenger accident, and has since dedicated himself to improving astronauts’ chances of survival in a high-altitude disaster.

Spacesuits are only certified to protect astronauts to 100 000 feet at the moment, which was the level from which Joe Kittinger descended from in 1960 when he set the current free-fall record by jumping from an open gondola 19,5 miles high. You can read a personal account of Kittinger’s experience from the Morning Spice this morning here. It was originally published in the November 1960 issue of National Geographic magazine.

Kittinger reached a speed of 988 km/h.

The Associated Press has more:

After a nearly three-hour descent to 120 000 feet, Baumgartner will take a bunny-style hop from a pressurized capsule into a near-vacuum where there is barely any oxygen to begin what is expected to be the fastest, farthest free fall from the highest-ever manned balloon.

But the former military parachutist can only make the jump if winds are no greater than 2 mph. A cold front already delayed the jump by one day, but his team was optimistic Monday that a break before a second cold front is due to arrive Thursday will give him the opportunity to complete his mission.

Baumgartner spent Monday at his hotel, mentally preparing for the dangerous feat with his parents, girlfriend and four close friends, his team said.

Among the risks: any contact with the capsule on his exit could tear the pressurised suit. A rip could expose him to a lack of oxygen and temperatures as low as 70 degrees below zero. It could cause potentially lethal bubbles to form in his bodily fluids, a condition known as “boiling blood.”

He could also spin out of control, causing other risky problems.

You can get more insight into Baumgartner’s jump on the Red Bull Stratos mission website here, and you can watch the event live at 14h30 South African time, here.

[Source: AP]