First British man  (Tim Peake) blasts off to space

The astronaut Tim Peake has blasted off from Kazakhstan on a mission which will see him become the first British person to live aboard the International Space Station .

He began the historic journey aboard a Soyuz rocket alongside Russian commander Yuri Malenchenko and American NASA astronaut Tim Kopra.

After the six hours it will take him to reach the ISS, Major Peake, 43, will spend six months orbiting the planet on the Principia mission, monitoring the effects of prolonged time in space on his body.

Peake is actually the second British person in space. In 1991, Helen Sharman spent eight days aboard the Mir space station.

Peake has spent more than six months training for the mission, which will see him conduct a series of experiments aboard the ISS as it hurtles around Earth at the speed of 17,500mph.

He reached orbit in just 10 minutes, but will not catch up with the orbiting space station for another six hours.

    

Footage issued by the European Space Agency of Major Tim Peake

He is due to dock at the ISS at 5.23pm which will be his home for the next six months. He should then be part of the team's first press conference at 6.45pm.

But ahead of the historic launch, he tweeted a message of thanks.

It read: "Last tweet before launch - GO for flight! Thanks for all the good luck messages - phenomenal support!"

Earlier, Maj Peake revealed he has been thinking ahead and has already booked his Christmas Day phone call to speak to his sons Thomas, six, and four-year-old Oliver.

Speaking on the eve of the launch he was asked what he was looking forward to most about the mission.

 

       

He said: “It really has to be the view of Planet Earth.

“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 beautiful view of Planet Earth.”

                                                  Tim Peake's misson lifts off