BASE 40 was successfully completed today.

Launch was about 8 minutes late in a light rain. 

Launch at 1218 UTC from southwest corner of track around football field.  Had good visual of the ascent for nearly ten minutes.

Burst at 88000 feet at 1319 UTC (average ascent speed of 1440 ft/min).  Occurred over the southwest corner of Greenfield, IN. 

At 62000 feet at 1323 UTC a catastrophic event occurred during post-burst chaos.  The APRS unit remained attached to the parachute, but one of the swivel connectors opened and the remaining string was cut by the carbon fiber tube released the 900 MHZ command pod, DominoEX, geiger counters, video cameras, and photometers.  With no chute, these boxes landed in a field southwest of Knightstown and northwest of Carthage, IN.  Impact occurred at 1334 UTC and the flight data recorder indicated a speed of about 48 miles/hour 200 feet above the ground.  Maximum descent speeds in the free fall reached 120 miles/hour.

With the reduced load, the parachute and APRS unit landed east of Richmond, IN at 1410 UTC in a soybean field about 2.5 miles east of the Indiana-Ohio state line between US 35 and I-70.

I will examine the video for additional details on the separation event.  This initial analysis comes from flight data and analysis of the payload strings.

Thanks again for your support,
Howard

P.S. - I know that Bill Brown would appreciate any feedback from those that attempted to receive the Domino EX signal.