Felix Baumgartner Space Jump Records: What Still Stands

Felix Baumgartner’s space jump on October 14, 2012 produced three records ratified by the FAI, the World Air Sports Federation: exit altitude of 38,969.4 m (127,852.4 ft), maximum vertical speed without a drogue of 1,357.6 km/h (843.6 mph, Mach 1.25), and a freefall distance of 36,402.6 m (119,431.1 ft). The altitude record fell to Alan Eustace on October 24, 2014. The FAI said in July 2025 that the speed and distance records were still unbeaten. One record he never took at all: the longest freefall by time, which stayed with Joe Kittinger.

That is the short version. The longer one is more interesting, because the numbers most people remember from that Sunday are not the numbers that went into the record books.

The Jump in One Timeline

Red Bull Stratos was the project name. Baumgartner, an Austrian BASE jumper and skydiver, rode a pressurized capsule under a helium balloon from Roswell, New Mexico, stepped off near the top of the stratosphere, and came back down under his own parachute. Guinness World Records puts the project cost at $20 million.

• March 2012: A test jump sets a maximum vertical speed record that Baumgartner would later beat on the main jump, according to the FAI’s ratification notice.
• October 14, 2012: The main jump. It lands 65 years to the day after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in an aircraft, on October 14, 1947.
• October 14, 2012, same day: Red Bull Stratos and YouTube publish preliminary figures.
• February 2013: The FAI ratifies three world records, with slightly different figures from the ones announced on the day.
• April 2, 2014: The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum opens “Red Bull Stratos: Mission to the Edge of Space,” displaying the capsule, pressure suit and parachute until May 26, 2014.
• October 24, 2014: Alan Eustace jumps from higher and takes the exit altitude record.
• July 2025: Baumgartner dies in a paragliding accident in Italy. The FAI’s tribute that month notes that two of his records outlived him.

The Felix Baumgartner Space Jump Records, as Ratified by the FAI

The FAI is the body that certifies air sports world records, and it had an observer at Roswell. According to the FAI’s ratification notice (checked September 23, 2026), three records were confirmed, all in parachuting Sub-Class G-2:

Baumgartner was also the first person to break the sound barrier in freefall, without an aircraft or propulsion. The Smithsonian’s April 2, 2014 press release describes him the same way, using the ratified 127,852 ft and 843.6 mph figures.

A small caution on the distance record. Different FAI pages do not agree with each other: the ratification notice and the FAI’s 2022 anniversary press release give 36,402.6 m, while one FAI anniversary news article gives 36,529 m. We use 36,402.6 m, the figure in the ratification itself.

Why the 2012 Numbers You Remember Are Different

Here is the part most recaps skip. On the day of the jump, the figures that went around the world came from preliminary data. YouTube’s own blog post from October 14, 2012 (checked September 23, 2026) listed them as the mission’s records. The FAI’s ratified figures arrived four months later, after the data had been analyzed.

So the official altitude came out slightly lower than the day-one figure, while the official top speed came out higher. Anyone quoting “128,100 feet” or “Mach 1.24” is quoting the preliminary number, not the record. Other outlets published their own day-one versions too: an AFP report carried by Gulf News cited a mission spokeswoman giving 128,097 ft. None of these were wrong for their moment. They were simply superseded.

This matters for anyone checking a claim today. If a source uses a figure around 128,100 feet together with Mach 1.24, it was probably written from the October 2012 coverage and never updated.

How Many Records Did He Actually Set?

The answer depends on who is counting, and the sources genuinely disagree.

• The FAI ratified three world records, listed in the table above.
• Guinness World Records credits the project with eight world records in total, counting categories beyond the three FAI parachuting records.
• The Smithsonian’s 2014 press release says that in addition to breaking the sound barrier he broke three other records: highest altitude for a piloted balloon, highest freefall and longest distance freefall.

None of these is a mistake. The FAI count is the narrow, certified parachuting list. Guinness and the Smithsonian use broader definitions. If you need one number for a quiz or a caption, “three FAI-ratified records” is the one a record body will stand behind.

Guinness also lists the freefall duration as “9:09 minutes,” which does not match other reporting. Reporting on the FAI ratification put the whole jump, from exit to landing, at about nine minutes, with the freefall itself lasting just over four. The Guinness figure appears to describe the full descent rather than the freefall.

The Record He Never Broke: Longest Freefall

Baumgartner’s goal was to beat Joe Kittinger, the U.S. Air Force officer whose 1960 jump had stood for 52 years. Guinness notes that Kittinger, then 84, aided Baumgartner throughout the mission.

He took Kittinger’s altitude record comfortably. He did not take the duration record. TIME’s report from October 15, 2012 put Baumgartner’s freefall at 4 minutes 20 seconds, about 16 seconds short of Kittinger’s 4 minutes 36 seconds from his jump of 102,800 ft on August 16, 1960. TIME also reported that mission planners had anticipated a freefall of around 5 minutes 35 seconds.

The reported freefall time varies by source:

• 4:19 in the AFP report carried by Gulf News, citing a mission spokeswoman, and in later reporting on the FAI ratification
• 4:20 in TIME’s day-after report
• 4:22 in early National Geographic and Fox News coverage, based on unofficial results

Every version is under Kittinger’s time. TIME reported that Baumgartner is thought to have fallen faster than expected and opened his parachute sooner than planned, and mentioned trouble with his helmet visor fogging.

Alan Eustace and the Altitude Record in 2014

Two years after Stratos, Alan Eustace, then a senior vice president at Google, launched from the Roswell area as well. He did not use a capsule. He hung beneath the balloon in a pressure suit and was released at altitude.

The FAI ratified three records from that jump, according to its October 2024 tenth-anniversary material:

Look closely at the category names, because they explain why Eustace took one of Baumgartner’s records and not the other two. Eustace used a drogue, a small stabilizing parachute that the FAI says kept him out of a high-speed spin. The FAI files speed and distance records set with a drogue separately from those set without one. Exit altitude carries no such split, so 41,422 m simply beat 38,969.4 m.

Eustace’s top speed of 1,320 km/h was also below Baumgartner’s 1,357.6 km/h. That is why the FAI could say, in July 2025, that Baumgartner’s speed and distance records still stood, even though Eustace had jumped from higher and fallen farther. The Guinness World Records page for the highest freefall parachute jump now lists Eustace.

Why the Jump Spread: The Livestream Record

For a site about internet history, the jump is as much a streaming story as an aviation one. According to YouTube’s October 14, 2012 blog post, viewers were watching more than 8 million concurrent livestreams of the mission at peak, which YouTube called the most concurrent views ever on YouTube at the time. Guinness adds that demand outweighed YouTube’s server capacity, so the real audience was likely larger than the counted one.

Timing helped. In the autumn of 2012, YouTube was already the center of global attention thanks to a single music video, a story told in our piece on why Gangnam Style was so popular. Stratos showed that the same platform could also carry a live event on the scale of television, with millions watching the same second together.

That live moment did not stay unusual for long. Within a few years, apps built entirely around going live appeared and then folded back into larger platforms, a pattern traced in our history of Periscope, Meerkat and the rise of live video. Short, loopable clips of the jump itself, meanwhile, suited the six-second video format that arrived soon after, covered in our story of Vine’s shutdown and archive.

We are not claiming the Stratos stream caused any of that. It was an early, very visible demonstration that live video at this scale worked.

The Aftermath: Where the Hardware Went

The capsule did not stay in a Red Bull hangar. The Smithsonian’s April 2, 2014 press release announced that the capsule, pressure suit and parachute had been donated to the National Air and Space Museum. After the “Mission to the Edge of Space” exhibition on the National Mall closed on May 26, 2014, the items moved to the museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, as part of its permanent collection.

Baumgartner died in a paragliding accident in Italy in July 2025. The FAI marked his death with a tribute noting that his speed and distance records had outlived him, still unbeaten 13 years after the jump.

What Is Still True in 2026

As of this update, the settled record of the jump reads like this:

• Baumgartner holds the FAI record for maximum vertical speed without a drogue, 1,357.6 km/h.
• He holds the FAI record for vertical distance of freefall, 36,402.6 m, which Eustace’s longer with-drogue fall did not replace.
• He no longer holds the exit altitude record, which Eustace took with 41,422 m in 2014.
• He never held the freefall duration record, which Kittinger kept.
• He was the first person to break the sound barrier in freefall, and that first cannot be taken away.

We checked these against the FAI and Smithsonian sources named above. If a new jump is ratified, the table at the top of this article is the part that would change.

FAQ

What records did Felix Baumgartner break with his space jump?

The FAI ratified three: exit altitude (38,969.4 m), maximum vertical speed without a drogue (1,357.6 km/h, Mach 1.25) and vertical distance of freefall (36,402.6 m). He was also the first person to break the sound barrier in freefall. Guinness counts eight records by its own broader definitions.

Does Felix Baumgartner still hold the space jump record?

He holds two of his three FAI records. The FAI said in July 2025 that his speed and freefall distance records were still unbeaten. The exit altitude record went to Alan Eustace, who jumped from 41,422 m on October 24, 2014.

Why do sources give different altitudes for the jump?

The figures announced on October 14, 2012, including 128,100 ft and Mach 1.24, were preliminary. The FAI ratified the final figures in 2013: 127,852.4 ft and Mach 1.25. Older articles often still carry the day-one numbers.

How long was Felix Baumgartner in freefall?

About four minutes and 20 seconds. Reported times range from 4:19 to 4:22 depending on the source. That was short of Joe Kittinger’s 4 minutes 36 seconds from 1960, so Baumgartner did not set a freefall duration record.

How many people watched the Red Bull Stratos jump live?

YouTube reported more than 8 million concurrent livestreams at peak, the most concurrent views on YouTube at the time, according to its October 14, 2012 blog post.