Brits thrilled as three new astronauts blast off to the ISS

A Russian space rocket with American, British and Russian astronauts on board successfully blasted off Tuesday for the International Space Station, the European Space Agency said.

A rocket carrying Briton Tim Peake has launched from a base in Kazakhstan, heading for the International Space Station.

Peake is accompanied by Russian space veteran Yury Malenchenko and Tim Kopra of NASA for a six-month mission for the for the European Space Agency (ESA). But astronaut Tim Peake said they won’t be missing out on the film.

His trip to the space station comes 24 years after Helen Sharman, a chemist from Sheffield, became the first Briton in space at the age of 27.

The rocket is carrying the Soyuz TMA-19M spaceship to the ISS, it lifted off at 5:03 pm local time and began its six-hour flight up to the International Space Station.

The launch went off with no reported problems and the capsule entered orbit about nine minutes after liftoff, at an altitude of about 125 miles (212 kilometers).

In under 10 minutes he was in space, and after a tense few minutes when the automatic docking system had to be diverted to manual control, his orbiting capsule locked on to the ISS.

Asked what it felt like to watch the launch, she said: “It was fantastic, but quite emotional as you can imagine”.

The researchers working aboard the International Space Station are about to get some relief.

Only five British-born people have gone into space before; the first being on a privately-funded mission in 1991 and the other four having taken U.S. citizenship.

During his time aboard the space station, Major Peake will take part in hundreds of experiments aimed at finding out the effects of microgravity on his own body. In fact, one Twitter user, Christ Eastabrook, make a small comment about how Peake must be upset that he gets to go to space while missing Star Wars.

Peake says he’s also looking forward to microgravity experiments inspired by Isaac Newton.

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

Britain unveiled an ambitious new space policy on the eve of Peake’s departure, aiming to more than triple the value of the sector to the national economy to £40 billion ($60 billion, 55 billion euros) by 2030.