MURMANSK, April 2. /TASS/. Hero of the Russian Federation, cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, instructor pilot Alexander Lynnik, as well as space and stratospheric engineer Denis Efremov, who plan to make the world's first stratospheric jump onto the North Pole, arrived in Murmansk, from where a plane will take them to the jump location. The skydivers can spend several days in the city waiting for the right weather, they told reporters before meeting with Murmansk students under the Arctic Dialogue project.
"We have a certain time limit, 2-3 days, to wait for good weather both there [at the North Pole] and here, because they must coincide. If the wind there is 20 m/s, the jump won't be possible, and thus we will have to wait for good weather, we have a certain reserve for this," Kornienko said.
The record jump's landing is planned at the airfield of the Russian polar station Barneo - a drifting camp, organized on the ice near the North Pole in spring, when the sun remains above the horizon, but the ice does not melt yet. "The free fall is a little more than two minutes, and 1.5 km under the parachute, when it opens, it's about another ten minutes," Kornienko added.
In Murmansk, the skydivers have met with the Murmansk Region Governor Andrey Chibis, and answered questions from Murmansk students under the Arctic Dialogue project.
The stratospheric jump onto a geographical point is planned for a period between April 2 and April 5. At the altitude of more than 10 km, off an Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft will jump cosmonaut, Hero of the Russian Federation Mikhail Kornienko, instructor pilot Alexander Lynnik, who made a parachute jump onto the North Pole in 2013, and Denis Efremov, founder of the Stratonautics aerospace laboratory. The jump onto the North Pole from such an altitude will be a world record.