Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner became the first man to break the sound barrier in a record-shattering, death-defying freefall jump Sunday from the edge of space.

The 43-year-old leapt from a capsule more than 24 miles (39 kilometers) above the Earth, reaching a top speed of 833.9 miles per hour, or 1.24 times the speed of sound, according to organizers.

The veteran skydiver was in freefall for four minutes and 20 seconds before opening his red and white parachute and floating down to the desert in the US state of New Mexico.

Mission control erupted in cheers as Baumgartner sprung from the capsule hoisted aloft by a giant helium-filled balloon to an altitude of 128,097 feet (39,044 meters), even higher than expected.

"I think 20 tons have fallen from my shoulders. I prepared for this for seven years," he told German-language ServusTV in Austria in his first interview after the leap.

Referring to a helmet problem that nearly forced him to abort at the last minute, Baumgartner said: "Even on a day like this when you start so well, then there's a little glitch.

"And you think you'll have to abort -- what if you've prepared everything and it fails on a visor problem. But I finally decided to jump. And it was the right decision."

The Austrian took more than two hours to get up to the jump altitude. Baumgartner had already broken one record before he even leapt: the previous highest altitude for a manned balloon flight was 113,740 feet, set in 1961.

He had been due to jump from 120,000 feet, but the balloon went higher than expected.

(Read by Emily Cheng. Emily Cheng is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)