Today the International Space Station’s crew welcomed aboard its first “official” British astronaut, Tim Peake, just hours after he blasted off in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft alongside U.S. and Russian spacefliers.
Peake, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko were lofted into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 5:03 a.m. local time (3:03 a.m. PT). 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. Kelly and Kornienko are more than halfway through a yearlong tour of duty.
After a round of hugs and handshakes, the crew exchanged additional greetings with family members and VIPs via a video link. “I hope you enjoyed the show,” Peake told David Parker, chief executive of the U.K. Space Agency.
Last tweet before launch – GO for flight! Thanks for all the good luck messages – phenomenal support! #Principia pic.twitter.com/8jbxejHEEe
— Tim Peake (@astro_timpeake) December 15, 2015
Day 263. New friends aboard – all settling into their crew quarters. #GoodNight from @space_station! #YearInSpace pic.twitter.com/Wrg2c2R1Pk
— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) December 16, 2015
The show sparked a few unexpected moments of drama when an initial attempt to dock using the Soyuz’s automated system was aborted. Malenchenko took control of the Soyuz, backed it away from the station and then guided the capsule in for a manual docking.
Peake is the first government-sponsored British astronaut to go into orbit as part of the European Space Agency’s program, but he’s not the first Briton in space. British chemist Helen Sharman flew to Russia’s Mir space station as a commercially sponsored cosmonaut in 1991. Several other British-born fliers have gone into space after taking on U.S. citizenship and joining NASA’s program. One of those British-American astronauts, Nicholas Patrick, now works for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture.
During his six-month stint, Peake will be conducting ESA-sponsored experiments as part of what’s called the “Principia” mission, named after 17th-century British physicist Isaac Newton’s masterwork. Peake also plans to run the 26.2-mile length of a marathon on the space station’s treadmill in April while tens of thousands of earthbound runners take on the London Marathon.
