A rocket carrying Briton Tim Peake has launched from a base in Kazakhstan, heading for the International Space Station.
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Fire from the boosters of the Soyuz rocket cut a bright light through the overcast sky at the cosmodrome in Kazakhstan as the spacecraft launched on schedule.
Peake docked safely at the space station on Tuesday, along with the Russian Yuri Malenchenko and NASA’s Timothy Kopra.
The otherwise smooth journey ended with a slightly delayed docking at 6.33 am, NZ time, as Russian commander Yuri Malenchenko aborted the automatic procedure and manually guided the spacecraft toward the station.
During their six-month mission aboard the station, the crew will conduct microgravity experiments, with lung health and inflammation of the astronauts to be charted.
“I also heard that a Christmas pudding went up on orbital four so we will have treats as well”, Peake said to laughter in the press room. AP’s earlier story is below.
Having initially started a distance away from the space station, the burns have been moving the Soyuz craft closer to the same orbit.
British astronaut Tim Peake is preparing for the ride of his life as a Russian rocket blasts him into orbit today.
David Bowie’s song “Space Oddity”, which was released the same month as NASA astronauts landed on the moon, was seen by some as poking fun at Britain’s space program.
The ISS space laboratory has been orbiting the Earth at roughly 28,000 kilometres per hour since 1998.
Live commentary streamed from the European Space Agency’s website during the docking process said the complications would probably make a “memorable” moment for Major Peake, now the first fully British professional astronaut to be sent into space.
A huge round of applause and cheering erupted in the Baikonur theatre in Kazakhstan where Major Tim Peake’s friends and family, along with ESA and NASA officials, watched the hatch opening.
The trio will be squeezed into the “descent module” of a tiny Soyuz TMA space capsule only about seven feet long.
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Throughout the last strategy, a docking probe on the end of the Soyuz is “captured” from the ISS, bringing both vehicles together.
