Soyuz spacecraft successfully docks with the International Space Station

He is the first fully British professional astronaut to be sent into space.

Major Peake’s wife, Rebecca, two sons, Thomas, six, and Oliver, four, and other members of his family watched the take-off from a VIP viewing area about a mile (1.7km) from the launch pad.

Yuri took manual control and backed the capsule away before making a second attempt to re-align it with the station’s docking port. Experts said this was unusual but nothing alarming and something the astronauts prepared for with training.

The mission blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

When asked on Twitter if he was disappointed that he miss the screening of the highly-anticipated film in theatres, Mr Peake revealed that he would still be catching it, in space.

Kopra, who lived on the ISS for two months in 2009, won’t carry the weight of a nation’s expectations to space.

Mrs Peake said: “Wasn’t it an wonderful sight?”

“Tim’s a big inspiration to me and my friends because it shows that what we want to dream of can definitely happen if we go for it”.

43-year-old Tim Peake took the landmark flight to the International Space Station (ISS) in the Soyuz space capsule along with Russian Yuri Malenchenko and American Tim Kopra, who will all spend six months on the station. Image copyright AP Image caption At blast-off, the rocket generated 422.5 tonnes of thrust – equivalent to 26 million horse power.

After lift-off, the Soyuz will reach orbit in just over eight minutes and then begin the approximately six-hour journey to the ISS. Peake replied that the ISS has the movie waiting for them up there.

He said: “I don’t think anything can truly prepare you for that moment and that will occur in the Soyuz spacecraft once we get injected into orbit I’ll be able to look out the right window and see the attractive view of Planet Earth”.

Astronaut Tim Peake made history Tuesday, blasting off from a launchpad in Kazakhstan on his way to join the crew of the International Space Station. Before they docked they had to catch up with the station, which travels at 17,500mph at an average altitude of 220 miles.