Tim Peake – Out of this World
Major Timothy Nigel “Tim” Peake CMG is a British Army Air Corps officer, European Space Agency astronaut and a former International Space Station crew member…
Born on the 7th April 1972 in Chichester, West Sussex
He studied at the Chichester High School for Boys and later became a British Army Officer. At school, Tim was a member of the Combined Cadet Force for six years, finishing as Cadet Warrant Officer.
Tim is married to Rebecca and has two sons
His hobbies include: climbing, caving, cross-country running and triathlon…
His achievements include being the first Briton on the International Space Station (ISS), the second Brit in Space and first Briton to do a spacewalk – it lasted 4 hours and 43 minutes!
Tim’s Mission was The name of Tim’s mission is ‘Principia,’ this is a reference to Isaac Newton’s book ‘Philosophia’ Naturalis Principia Mathematica,’ where he set out his gravity theory, a book, still today, considered one of the most important books in the history of science. The Mission name was chosen by the public and the logo was submitted as part of a Blue Peter Competition. One of Tim’s aims is to inspire children during his stay in space, by promoting healthy eating.
Tim is one of three astronauts on the Principia mission. On the ISS they spend much of their time working on experiments that cannot be done anywhere on Earth, because gravity is only 90% of Earth’s there. For example, Tim recently asked schools to plant rocket seeds that have been in orbit with him, and compare their growth with rocket plants that have stayed on Earth. This experiment is done to make sure people are able to grow nutritious food in space, to supplement their dried or tinned food, when on long duration missions, for example to Mars, and that limited gravity grown food has no harmful side effects.
International Space Station Interesting Facts:
879 days: The longest anyone has spent in space: Russian Cosmonaut Gennady Padalka
$150,000,000,000: The cost of the ISS
17,100 mph: The average speed of the ISS
200-250 miles: The distance of the ISS above Earth. That’s the distance between London to Liverpool!
90% At that distance, the force of gravity is still about 90 percent what it is here on the surface. The astronauts appear €˜weightless’ because of orbital motion
The ISS orbits Earth every 90 minutes: that is 45 minutes in daylight followed by another 45 minutes in complete darkness.
Getting There:
This is Tim Peake’s first space mission, he was selected out of 8,000 hopefuls and after 6 years of intensive training became the first Briton to join the European Space Agency’s astronaut corps in 2009. The name of the Rocket Tim used to get to the International Space Station is the Soyuz and it stands at over 50m! Tim launched from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The time of launch for his mission was 11.03 am GMT on Tuesday 15th December. Tim reached space nine minutes after take-off and circled the Earth four times before arriving at the space station, six hours after his launch. Tim will be in space, as part of mission, for a total of six months.
Images from UK Space Agency and ESA
