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Saturday, June 18, 2016

Britain's first astronaut Tim Peake is back on Earth after historic six-month mission aboard the International Space Station


Britsh astronaut Tim Peake is back on Earth after a historic six-month stay on the ISS

After 186 days in space, Tim Peake has returned to Earth. The final goodbyes were said at 2am this morning before Peake stepped into the Russian Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft.

Expedition 47 crew members (from left) Oleg Skripochka, Jeff Williams, Alexey Ovchinin, Tim Peake, Tim Kopra and Yuri Malenchenko

Along with him were commander Yuri Malenchenko and NASA's Tim Kopra.
Major Peake (left) returned home with crewmates Yuri Malenchenko of Russia (centre) and Tim Kopra of the US
Tim Peake shared this photo of him and his two crewmates a few hours before they began their descent back down to Earth



The team undocked from the International Space Station at 5.51am and separated a minute later.

They successfully completed the deorbit burn and are re-entered the atmosphere at a speed 28,800km/h.

Parachutes were deployed on time and the whole process was described as "by the book" by NASA.

They landed in south central Kazakhstan where rescue services were waiting.



A Soyuz capsule carrying Major Peake and two other crew members touched down in Kazakhstan at 10:15 BST.


He called the journey back "the best ride I've been on ever", adding: "The smells of Earth are just so strong."

Maj Peake is the first person to fly to space under the UK banner since Helen Sharman in 1991 and made the first spacewalk by a UK astronaut.

During the 186-day mission mission, Maj Peake also remotely steered a robot on Earth and ran the London Marathon.

In 2009, Maj Peake was chosen from a pool of 8,000 applicants to join the European Space Agency (Esa) astronaut training programme, along with five other recruits.



His mission has taken him on about 3,000 orbits of Earth, covering a distance of about 125 million km

The first thing that Tim Peake did was call his family while still in his spacesuit after touching down in Kazakhastan at around 10.15am

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