Echo & The Bunnymen send greetings to International Space Station astronauts

Peake became the eighth Briton in space after training six years for the trip.

“Major Tim”, and fellow crew members Russian Yuri Malenchenko and American Tim Kopra, are due to dock with the ISS at 17:24 GMT.

Astronaut Tim Peake will under 10 gruelling exercise sessions each week he is on the ISS to maintain his strength, bones and fitness.

Even the launch pad used for manned flights has remained the same since Yuri Gagarin’s first mission in 1961.

“To Europe and the United Kingdom, I hope you enjoyed the show”.

YOUNG people in Bolton witnessed a historic moment and cheered as Tim Peake blasted off into space just minutes ago.

“He will provide Tim with exercise programmes to follow, he will review Tim’s exercise and his results every week and he will suggest changes or increases or decreases in certain types of activity to try to make sure that we keep the exercise interesting for Tim – but we also keep the intensity high enough to get the effects that we’re looking for”. And since then, several Brits with dual citizenship have gone into space as part of other countries’ space programs, or as part of privately-funded missions.

Major Peake’s mission, called Prinicipia in homage to Sir Isaac Newton’s ground-breaking text on gravity and motion, will last nearly six months.

It will take them six hours for the space capsule to reach the ISS.

In the end the docking went smoothly and the Soyuz was firmly attached to the space station.

Peake smiled cheerfully and looked confident as he prepared to board the spacecraft earlier on Tuesday.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have also congratulated Major Peake on his arrival at the ISS this evening.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are required to know Russian and English.

“We join with his friends and family in wishing him a productive mission and a safe return to Earth”.

The trio will be squeezed into the “descent module” of a tiny Soyuz TMA space capsule only about seven feet long.

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