Astronauts blast into space for International Space Station mission

A rocket has blasted off carrying three astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) including Major Tim Peake, the first British professional astronaut to be employed by a space agency. They took off in the Soyuz FG rocket at 11.03am GMT (17.03 local time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, successfully reaching their designated orbit within about nine minutes. The launch took place at the same spot from which Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space in April 1961.

I want to go with Daddy.

Tim Peake’s four-year-old son Oliver.

The crew had a tense wait of more than an hour in the tiny capsule before the scheduled launch time. It will take around six hours to reach the ISS, which travels around the Earth at 28,000 kmph (17,500mph). Major Peake is joined by NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, both spaceflight veterans. The arriving crew will be greeted by the space station’s current inhabitants: NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov. Kelly and Kornienko are nearing the end of their year-long space mission, and Volkov has been on the station since early September.

Science