Skydiver Felix Baumgartner Completes 17-Mile Dive

In this photo provided by Red Bull Stratos, Felix Baumgartner salutes as he prepares to board the capsule carried by a balloon during the first manned test flight for Red Bull Stratos in Roswell, N.M. on Thursday, March 15, 2012. Baumgartner is more than halfway toward his goal of setting a world record for the highest jump. A spokesperson says the skydiver took a practice jump from more than 13 miles high over New Mexico. He's aiming for nearly 23 miles in the summer. The record is held by Joe Kittinger who jumped from 19.5 miles in 1960. (AP Photo/Red Bull Stratos, Joerg Mitter)

Daredevil Felix Baumgartner this morning landed from his 17-mile dive back to Earth from the edge of space, in a plummet that reached a speed of 600 mph in 20 seconds.
Mission Control gave the go ahead this morning for the launch, saying "God Speed Felix" from Roswell, N.M., where the mission is being hosted. Baumgartner, an Austrian national, was lifted in a capsule carried afloat by a huge helium balloon.

The balloon took 90 minutes to get to 90,000 feet. The crane holding the capsule went up as fast as it could to get the capsule under the 210-foot tall balloon as it rose. After he jumped, Baumgartner was in freefall for five minutes. After five minutes, his parachute opened, at which point it took another seven to10 minutes to descend to Earth.
"The pressure is huge, and we not only have to endure but excel," Baumgartner told ABC News before the jump. "We're excellently prepared, but it's never going to be a fun day. I'm risking my life, after all."
Red Bull is financing the daredevil skydive from space. The mission is named Stratos. It was five years of planning by a team of experts, many volunteering their services, to break several records in one breathtaking plunge back to Earth.
The Records Baumgartner had planned to break included those for the first person to break the sound barrier outside of an aircraft, the record for freefall from the highest altitude, and that for the longest freefall time, expected to be five minutes and 35 seconds, and that for the highest-manned balloon flight.
Baumgartner would be breaking a 52-year-old record, and he recruited the man who set the record, the legendary retired Air Force Col. Joe Kittinger, for advice.
Kittinger jumped from a balloon Aug. 16, 1960, at an altitude of 102,900 feet, and fell for almost five minutes before opening a parachute to slow his descent at 18,000 feet.
He made history for the highest-balloon ascent, the highest parachute jump and the fastest speed by a human through the atmosphere.