BASE 40 Flight:   2009 October 8

Launch:      Greencastle High School Greencastle, IN 12:18 UTC     

Burst Altitude:  88,000 feet at 13:19 UTC average ascent of 1440 ft/min

Landing: two sites: southwest of Knightstown, IN at 13:34 UTC

                and east of Richmond, IN at 14:10 UTC

Experiments:

       Digital video cameras

       Dual Axis Cosmic Ray Telescope

       LED photometers

       Tilt axis sensor

Radios: APRS on 144.390 MHz (call sign W9YJ-11) every two minutes

              DominoEX 22 speed on 146.565 MHz (call sign N9QGS) for 20 seconds every minute

At 62000 feet at 13:23 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 13:34 UTC and the flight data recorder indicated a speed of about 48 miles/hour while just 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 14:10 UTC in a soybean field about 2.5 miles east of the Indiana-Ohio state line between US 35 and I-70.