Start of the new Soyuz mission is scheduled on Tuesday, Dec. 15. Tim Peake and two other astronauts Timothy Kopra of the United States and Yuri Malenchenko of Russian Federation blast off from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome.
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A capsule carrying British astronaut Major Tim Peake has successfully docked with the International Space Station.
He said: “I don’t think anything can truly prepare you for that moment and that will occur in the Soyuz spacecraft once we get injected into orbit I’ll be able to look out the right window and see the handsome view of Planet Earth”.
The first picture of Peake with his fellow astronauts was released by the European Space Agency, which welcomed him on board in a post on social media.
In a tweet posted on Sunday, Peake disclosed that the International Space Station (ISS) will be treating the astronauts with a Star Wars screening to be projected onboard.
At 2:25 p.m. EST (1925 GMT) today, the hatches were due to be opened between the Soyuz and the Russian segment of the space station. 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.
Major Peake launched from the same spot from which Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space in April 1961.
The former army major is the first publicly funded astronaut to officially represent the British government in space, designated by the Union Jack patch on his space suit.
Malenchenko is the most experienced of the newly-launched trio with experience on Mir and the space station, including participating in early shuttle missions to prepare the station for long-term habitation.
Peake has been warned though, his methane bottom burps could ignite within the confined space if the air filter system is faulty.
Don’t Stop Me Now by the rock group Queen was blaring in the Soyuz roughly half an hour before blast-off as the astronauts listened to their favourite music in preparation for the mission.
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“We hope that Major Peake’s work on the Space Station will serve as an inspiration to a new generation of scientists and engineers”.
