Britain's first official astronaut Major Tim Peake left for International Space Station(ISS) at 11.03am GMT Tuesday Dec 15,2015

Major Tim Peake has made space history by being the first British astronaut to blast off to the International Space Station

 

Major Peake, alongside Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko and Nasa's flight engineer Tim Kopra took off at 11.03 GMT from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on board a Soyuz TMA-19 rocket

Tim Peake follows tradition and signs a door at the Cosmonaut Hotel before his launch to the International Space Station. On the day of launch cosmonauts always sign their hotel room door and leave the hotel to the sound of Soviet-era Zemlyane, The Earthlings

Major Peake, a former Army helicopter pilot, is on his way to the ISS in a module the size of a van, which sits on top of a Soviet rocket based on a 1950s ballistic missile. He is pictured inside the capsule giving a 'thumbs up' to the on-board camera

 

Expedition 46 Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko is pictured top right, above flight engineer Tim Kopra and Esa's Tim Peake of ESA as they wave farewell prior to boarding the Soyuz TMA-19M rocket

Tim Peake (left), Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko (centre) and US astronaut Tim Kopra (right)

The Soyuz FG Rocket, pictured, is carrying  British astronaut Tim Peake to the ISS

Major Peake,the married father of two, from Chichester, West Sussex, has spent six years in training for the mission, which will see him spend six months aboard the ISS – an orbiting laboratory that speeds through space at 17,500mph some 248 miles above Earth.

MAJOR PEAKE: JOURNEY TO SPACE 

2008: Applied to the European Space Agency. Start of rigorous, year-long screening process

2009: Selected to join the European Space Agency Astronaut Corps and appointed an ambassador for UK science and space-based careers

2010: Completed 14 months of astronaut basic training

2011: Peake and five other astronauts joined a team living in caves in Sardinia for a week.

2012: Spent 12 days living in a permanent underwater base in Florida 

2013: Assigned a six-month mission to the International Space Station

2015: Will embark on the Principia mission, a long-duration flight to the ISS 

Photographers take pictures as Russia's Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft carrying the International Space Station Expedition 46/47 crew lifts off