British astronaut blasts off toward Space Station

Top image: The launch of Soyuz TMA-19M as seen from the International Space Station on December 15, 2015.

“There’s a wonderful opportunity to inspire a new generation of scientists and engineers”, Peake said during a press conference at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan before his launch.

Malenchenko is the most experienced member of the new group with 641 days in space.

Major Peake along with Russian commander Yuri Malenchenko and NASA astronaut Tim Kopra were greeted by the existing crew of the ISS, which travels around the Earth at 17,500mph at an average height of 220 miles. They made a brisk 6.5-hour trip to the station and were greeted by three crewmates: NASA’s Scott Kelly and Russia’s Mikhail Kornienko and Sergei Volkov. They will return here on Earth on March 1 2016. The agency called it the culmination of the six years of training Peake has had since being selected for the European astronaut corps in 2009.

Three other astronauts – NASA’s Kjell Lindgren, Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Kononenko – returned to Earth on Friday.

A Soyuz space craft has successfully docked with the International Space Station. The space flight will take six and a half hours.

For Malenchenko, it will be his sixth flight to the station. A meeting of Cameron’s cabinet “agreed that Tim Peake’s mission is an inspiration for people up and down the country, particularly young people and children looking to study science”, his spokeswoman said. Peake will become the first British astronaut to fly to the space station upon his successful arrival Wednesday afternoon.

Peake is a veteran military pilot. “Thanks for all the good luck messages – phenomenal support!”

Major Peake is employed by the European Space Agency and sports a Union flag on his sleeve.

In April he will run the entire 26.2-mile London Marathon on a treadmill aboard the space station.

“We get along famously with all the worldwide partners, and I hope the next step in our exploration, be it the moon or Mars, involves global partners”, Kopra said in a statement. Peake is one of 24 ESA astronauts participating in the data collection, which is about halfway finished.

This is the picture astronaut Tim Kopra took of Echo & The Bunnymen’s Ocean Rain the last time he visited the worldwide space station.