Felix Baumgartner (born 20 April 1969) is an Austrian skydiver, daredevil and BASE jumper. He is best known for jumping to Earth from a helium balloon in the stratosphere on 14 October 2012. Doing so, he set world records for skydiving an estimated 39 km (24 mi), reaching an estimated top speed of 1,357.64 km/h (843.6 mph), or Mach 1.25. He became the first person to break the sound barrier without vehicular power relative to the surface on his descent. He broke skydiving records for exit altitude, vertical freefall distance without drogue, and vertical speed without drogue. Though he still holds the latter records, the first was broken two years later, when on 24 October 2014, Alan Eustace jumped from 135,890 feet - or, 41.42 km (25.74 mi) with a drogue.

A drogue parachute is a parachute designed to be deployed from a rapidly moving object in order to slow the object, to provide control and stability, or as a pilot parachute to deploy a larger parachute. It was invented in Russia by Gleb Kotelnikov in 1912.

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