United Kingdom celebrates first British astronaut in space

Former army major Peake – a European Space Agency flight engineer – begins a mission of more than 170 days or almost six months at the orbiting research outpost along with Russia’s Malenchenko and NASA’s Kopra.

Major Peake, 43, is the first fully British professional astronaut to be employed by a space agency.

Timothy Peake is the first astronaut from Britain who will be working full-time in the global space program.

The trio has been on the space station since March 2015 and are set to return to earth on Soyuz TMA-18M on the March 1, 2016.

The spacecraft carried the new Expedition 46/47 of a Russian cosmonaut, a United States and a European astronaut onto the International Space Station (ISS).

Among them will be a UK-designed test to check for problems suffered by astronauts – including visual complications and sickness – caused by increased brain pressure.

This morning, Major Peake waved goodbye to his family before the Soyuz rocket blasted off into space from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, at 11.03am.

While in orbit, the astronauts, who will be a part of Expedition 46, will work on various science experiments benefiting life on Earth and others that could have an impact on future long-haul missions in space.

The journey to the space station was to take six-and-a-half hours.

The experienced air pilot will become only the eighth Briton to enter the cosmos after Tuesday’s rocket launch, which is scheduled for around 1100 GMT.

After millions of people watched the launch, his space capsule is due to dock with the ISS at 5.23pm. The International Space Station showed a shot of the Soyuz climbing into space on live television.

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.

Soyuz spacecraft successfully docks with the International Spa…

He will also run the distance of the London Marathon in April, but on a treadmill aboard the ISS.