SCOTTY!!!!...I mean......ROCKETMONKEY!!!!! Long-time, my friend.....
Yeah, it is a total bummer. That's two outta three now. I have the same feeling as I did with X-15 except this one was a bit more personal. The whole Proton idea was mine since my company is launching a satellite on a Proton. After mentioning the idea to Todd, it took off from there (literally). We did nearly all of the building, except the painting, in my garage. I was sort-of the Project Manager, although Paul, Larry, and Todd were also driving forces, as well as Jim M and Sparky.
In retrospect, we should have done a few things differently:
1) The swing-out fins seemed like a good idea at the time but swing-down fins (which were highly considered as well) have proven more effective on other rockets, such as Delta II. The failure of one of the fins to lock started us down the path of destruction.
2) We had two G-Wiz LCX'es in addition to the MAD. We had them both set for accelerometer apogee detect. This was the "recommended" setting by G-Wiz. However in hindsight, we should have set at least one of them for barometric mode. We might have gotten deployment at apogee then. It may have still been ugly at those speeds but we might have gotten the sustainer back.
3) We should have tested the booster separation with the chute and recovery gear installed. Someone mentioned that to us just before the flight but it was too late by then. His point was that the chute can actually act as a shock absorber for the charge. That, possibiliy combined with the forces of vertical flight, made the charge seem inadequate and left the booster attached at ignition of the sustainer. The sustainer motor then proceeded to fry our booster chute and harness, dooming the booster.
4) We don't know, and will probably never know, why the MAD didn't work. We tested it on a small rocket and it seemed to deploy although that rocket lost it's shock chord and the MAD came in hard. Maybe the G-switch got damaged and we probably should have double checked it again.
You would think that with triple-redundancy, something would have worked as planned. Todd and I have vowed to not launch a large rocket without a remote switch again.
Oh well. As Todd said, we got the lower part of the sustainer back with the "O H M" letters on it and I'm already scheming what to make from it. It shall be called the "OHM".
We will fly that next year......but not until I get my L3. That is my next project.....
Jim