Tim Peake docks at International Space Station

Space fever is gripping the nation today (Tuesday December 15) with the opportunity for Cestrians to gaze up at the International Space Station (ISS) just minutes before the arrival of the Soyuz rocket carrying British astronaut Tim Peake.

They blasted off in the Russian Soyuz TMA-19 capsule shortly after 11.00 GMT in Kazakhstan as they embarked on the six-hour journey through space.

Former army major Peake – a European Space Agency flight engineer – begins a 173-day mission at the orbiting research outpost along with Malenchenko, 53, and 52-year-old Kopra.

A rocket carrying Britain’s first astronaut Major Tim Peake is on route to the International Space station.

The Russian rocket will carry US astronaut Tim Kopra, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and British astronaut Tim Peake.

Zero gravity was reached by the Soyuz spacecraft after nine minutes of travel.

“Obviously, there is a lot of pressure being a British astronaut going to the space station for the first time”, Peake, 43, told Florida Today in September.

Peake’s wife and children, and his parents Angela and Nigel, watched the launch from the VIP observation area more than a mile from the launchpad.

Once that occurs, the three will be greeted by NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov.

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

Mission control speaking to the astronauts said they were “a little bit worried” as the first approach didn’t go to plan.

They will spend the next six months aboard the International Space Station, continuing hundreds of experiments. His mission should last six months-if all goes well, he will return on June 5, 2016.

Peake recently shared a playlist on music streaming service Spotify revealing all of the songs he will be listening to in space. “We have a serious project in the European Space Station to land on the moon, and that is part of an exploration of the solar system that will eventually take us to Mars”.