The jump has been delayed to Sunday October 14th 2012 at 8:30 MDT
This will be their last chance as there is only one useable balloon left and it turned out that it worked out great. The BBC is working on a documentary to be out sometime in November.
Any moment day now, Felix Baumgartner (the skydiver) will ascend to some 36 km into the stratosphere on 30 million square feet of helium. And then there's the jumping part too of course. Although Red Bull is the primary sponsor of this endeavor, co-sponsoring is Zenith, the LVMH owned maker of the famed and widely used El Primero (think Rolex Daytona, Louis Vuitton LV277, and Dior Chiffre Rouge).
Felix is also a Zenith ambassador
The Zenith El Primero Stratos Striking 10th Flyback Chronograph that Felix will be wearing during the jump
Felix's jump will be launched at Roswell, New Mexico, USA and land hopefully in the vicinity of launch. During this, four world records will be broken: Highest manned balloon flight, fastest human freefall (Joe Kittinger's supersonic speed was unverified and disputed and verified at Mach 0.9), highest skydive, and fastest human without propulsion.
Current record holder for the highest freefall in 1960, Joseph Kittinger
Since we love specs here at Horolograph, here they are for the Zenith Stratos:
Cal 4057B
13.25''' (30 mm)
6.6 mm thick
326 parts, 31 jewels
36,000 VPH
50+ Hour power reserve, self winding
1/10th second chronograph function
Date function
Case:
45.5mm
Sapphire case back (strange for this kind of watch)
Water resistent 10 atm
It's also worth mentioning that there is another Felix Baumgartner, and he's a watchmaker and the co-founder of Urwerk. Perhaps Felix should be wearing an Urwerk during the jump since I've come to realize that most modern mechanical watches can survive even rather extreme conditions.