A hockey player's salut for Memorial Day Weekend launch of #Thaicom8 by #SpaceX

Tournament Weekend! Since moving to Florida I have competed in the Memorial Day [Weekend] tournament at the Space Coast Iceplex. I left home a little early to make sure I wasn't driving at the beginning of the +SpaceX launch window. I watched patiently on the webcast and found the rocket right on target to the North so I gave it a hockey player salut since I knew my photo quality was going to be low anyway. I then watched the webcast as SpaceX landed for the third time in a row on their barge out in the Atlantic Ocean!

Here's to you rocket! Tweet text for these two photos: Hockey player salute to #SpaceX #THAICOM8 launch from @SCIceplex Memorial Day Tournament! Great work @SpaceX!

That evening was probably our worse game because of fierce competition, but I did set up a goal in the final minutes.

The official stats:

May 27	Falcon 9   •  Thaicom 8
Launch time: 2139 GMT (5:39 p.m. EDT) Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the Thaicom 8 communications satellite. Thaicom 8 will provide Ku-band broadcast and data services to Thailand, Southeast Asia, India and Africa. Moved forward from June. Scrubbed on May 26. Read our full story. [May 27]

Space!

Ryan

Sometimes you need to rest and let the rockets fly as they may #JCSAT14 #SpaceX #Falcon9

Even though it would have taken a simple alarm and sitting up in bed to look at the window, we missed this launch as we were all sick and needed our rest. I actually thought that we would be woken up by the rumble, but not this time. With a long launch window as well, it could have turned into a very long night. Just to gauge how sick we were, I stayed home from hockey the previous Friday night and I rarely miss hockey! I did head dow to Port Canaveral to snap a few photos of the first stage after it returned from landing on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean. It was an impressive site to see the scale of the first stage compared to the tiny workers at it's business end preparing the hardware to get loaded on a flatbed truck a few days later. Another notable milestone is that this may have been the 50th launch since Jen and I moved to Florida in Sept 2012. I will need to check the stats and figure out when the 50th launch we "not miss" will occur. As I write this month-late blog entry, another first stage has arrived at the Port! The pace of space is picking up, and the place for space is the Space Coast!

Twitter original text: She's still got legs. SpaceX Falcon 9 1st stage at Port Canaveral from #JCSAT14 launch. #CapeLife #Falcon9 #SpaceX

SpaceX returns to the ISS, a perfect kickoff to Yuri's Night weekend #CRS8 #YurisNight #ISSRC

This post has been significantly delayed because of all the awesome April activities including +Yuri's Night, +NASA Swarmathon and NASA's +International Space Apps Challenge. A little has been lost from the raw emotion of +SpaceX's triumphant return to the +International Space Station and historic landing on a barge out at sea for the first time, but as always, the photos retell the best stories.

As always, the blog starts with the launch pic. Right on time, no delays, a nice way to end the week and begin the Yuri's Night weekend!