Tim Peake, Britain’s first official astronaut, is on board the global

Other Britons who have flown into space have done so either as private individuals – Richard Garriott and Mark Shuttleworth – or by taking U.S. citizenship – the Nasa astronauts Piers Sellers and Nicholas Patrick.

The British astronaut, 43 from Chichester, travelled for 6 hours in his historic flight on Tuesday marking the first official Briton to land on the ISS.

The astronaut left for space – together with fellow crew members American Tim Kopra and Russian Yuri Malenchenko – aboard a Kazakhstan-built Soyuz rocket at 11:03 GMT on Tuesday.

During his six-month mission, called Principia in homage to Sir Isaac Newton’s ground-breaking text on gravity and motion, he will participate in some 265 experiments and engage with schools around the UK. “What an incredible ride to space yesterday – Soyuz felt so smooth & powerful”.

It took six hours for the tiny Soyuz TMA-19M to catch up with the space station, travelling at 17,500 mph 250 feet above the Earth.

Afterwards a smiling Rebecca said: “Tim looked so happy”.

The trio will spend six months aboard the outpost.

“Today was better than I could have imagined”.

Major Peake, a former Army helicopter pilot will be carried there in a module the size of a van, which sits on top of a Soviet rocket based on a 1950s ballistic missile.

The willingness of news programs like ABC News 24 to continuously repeat erroneous reports about Tim Peak’s space flight, and even joke on air about how they were just (but inaccurately) repeating what the BBC had said, tells us a great deal about declining editorial standards of accuracy in Australia’s national broadcaster.

The astronaut also received some warm words of support from the Queen, who published a letter to Peake penned by her and Prince Phillip saying she hoped the mission would “serve as an inspiration to a new generation of scientist and engineers”. But, because of this kind of environment, Peake will also have to work on his fitness in order to make sure that he will maintain his strength, bones, and fitness.

“We ll be enjoying the fantastic view of planet Earth and our thoughts will be with everyone on Earth enjoying Christmas and with our friends and family”, he said.