Britain's first ever official astronaut is headed into space.
In November 2015, Major Tim Peake will blast off from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and begin a six-month stint on the International Space Station (ISS).
The European Space Agency (ESA) mission will be a landmark moment for the UK, which has never before had an official, government-funded astronaut.
"It's a true privilege to be chosen for a long-duration mission
[on the ISS]," said Peake, a former Apache helicopter pilot, at a press conference on 20 May at the Science Museum in London. "It's the highlight of a long career in aviation."
The Chichester-born 41-year-old has been in training for a space mission since May 2009, when he became the first Brit to be inducted into the European Space Agency astronaut corps. He was one of six chosen from around 8,000 applicants.
After the huge media impact of Canadian Chris Hadfield's ISS mission, there are high hopes that Peake will inspire a new generation of science and technology students. Hadfield accrued almost one million Twitter followers during his five-month mission on the ISS, and his rendition of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" was a viral hit, getting more than 14 million views on YouTube.
"A large part of this is to inspire a generation," said Peake, who tweets @astro_timpeake.
However, he cautioned against hopes for music videos. "I do play guitar, but quite badly and I wouldn't want to inflict my singing
[on everyone]," he said.
Peake will join the ISS as a flight engineer, and is qualified to carry out spacewalks and operate docking manouevres. Two SpaceX vehicles and one Japanese HTV vehicle will visit the ISS during Peake's stay. It's not yet known what experiments Peake will carry out on the space station, but they are likely to be related to the UK's microgravity research programme.
He said he was confident it would be a safe mission, noting that his "future career is far safer than my previous career [as a test pilot]". "This is a landmark moment for Britain and our reputation as a leading science nation," said Science Minister David Willetts, announcing the mission. "I hope that Major Tim will help promote a British resurgence in science and technology".
The "landmark moment" hasn't come cheap, however. In November, at a meeting of ESA member states in Naples, Italy, the UK made a £16 million "one-off" contribution to the Orion project, Nasa's next-generation spaceship. A sum of money that Willetts admitted at the press conference "may have helped things along".
Britain has often been criticised for not making a large enough financial commitment to international space activities. Peakes' May 2009 selection for the ESA astronaut corps was widely seen as a coup for Britain, which at the time contributed less to the ESA's budget than France, Germany or Italy. The UK now contributes around £240 million a year, putting it ahead of Italy.
Peake's mission is hoped to give a boost to the UK space industry, which is worth around £9 billion per year and supports almost 30,000 jobs.
ESA's Director of Human Spaceflight and Operations Thomas Reiter thanked the UK for its "strong commitment" to the ESA, and said that he hoped that "momentum" could be maintained in coming years -- diplomatic code for, "keep the money flowing".
A graduate of Sandhurst, Peake got his wings in 1994, and later also trained as a helicopter pilot. He was an Army Air Corps officer from 1992 until his retirement from the British army in 2009, serving in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Afghanistan. He has a BSc in flight dynamics.
Peake will be the fourth from the 2009 class of ESA astronauts to go to space. He completed basic astronaut training in November 2010 and has been waiting for a mission since then. His training has included 12 days living in an underwater base, 20m under the sea.
Brits who have previously travelled into space have either taken American citizenship and flown with Nasa, or have gone as private individuals.
Michael Foale, a British-born astronaut with Nasa, is Britain's most experienced astronaut, with 374 days in orbit. He was the first Briton to perform a space walk and was able to join Nasa due to his dual British/American citizenship.
The first Briton in space was Helen Sharman. She flew to the Mir space station in 1991 as part of Project Juno, a privately organised British space mission.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
