Tim Peake

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Timothy Peake
Timothy Peake, official portrait.jpg
Tim Peake in 2013
Nationality British
Status Active
Born Timothy Nigel Peake
(1972-04-07) 7 April 1972 (age 52)[1]
Chichester, Sussex, England
Other occupation
 Test pilot
Previous occupation
 British Army officer
University of Portsmouth (BSc)
Rank Major
Time in space
 currently in space
Selection 2009 ESA Group
Total EVAs
 1
Total EVA time
 4 hours, 43 minutes
Missions Soyuz TMA-19M (Expedition 46/47)
Mission insignia
 Soyuz-TMA-19M-Mission-Patch.png
Error creating thumbnail: File with dimensions greater than 25 MP
ISS Expedition 47 Patch.svg
Website principia.org.uk

Timothy Nigel Peake (born 7 April 1972) is a former regular British Army Air Corps officer (now a Reservist) and a current European Space Agency astronaut[2] and International Space Station (ISS) crew member.

He is the first British ESA astronaut, the second astronaut to bear a British flag patch (the first was Helen Sharman), the sixth person born in the United Kingdom to go on-board the International Space Station (the first was NASA astronaut Michael Foale in 2003) and the seventh UK-born person in space (the first was Helen Sharman, who visited Mir as part of Project Juno in 1991).[3] He began the ESA's intensive astronaut basic training course in September 2009 and graduated on 22 November 2010.[4]

Early life

Peake was born in Chichester, West Sussex.[1] He studied at the Chichester High School for Boys, leaving in 1990 to attend the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.[5]

Career

Military and aeronautical

Upon graduation from Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1992, Peake served as a platoon Commander with the Royal Green Jackets.[6] Peake became a qualified helicopter pilot in 1994 and a qualified helicopter instructor in 1998, graduating from CFS(H) at the Defence Helicopter Flying School at RAF Shawbury[7] in Shropshire. In 2005, he graduated from the Empire Test Pilots School in Wiltshire and was awarded the Westland's Trophy for best rotary wing student. He then served on Rotary Wing Test and Evaluation Squadron (RWTES) at MOD Boscombe Down completing trials on Apache helicopters.

Peake completed a BSc (Hons) in Flight Dynamics & Evaluation at the University of Portsmouth the following year.[8] Peake left the army in 2009 after 17 years of service and over 3,000 flying hours to his credit, becoming a test pilot with AgustaWestland.[9][10]

Astronautical

Peake on the NEEMO 16 mission

Peake beat over 8,000 other applicants for one of the six places on the ESA's new astronaut training programme. The selection process included taking academic tests, fitness assessments and several interviews.[11] Peake moved to Cologne with his family for the ESA training.[12]

Peake has become the first British or UK-born person to fly into space without a private contract (Helen Sharman – the first Briton in space[13]) or foreign citizenship (Michael Foale, Gregory H. Johnson, Piers Sellers, Nicholas Patrick,[14] Richard Garriott and Mark Shuttleworth).

On 16 April 2012, NASA announced that Peake would serve as an aquanaut aboard the Aquarius underwater laboratory during the NEEMO 16 undersea exploration mission, scheduled to begin on 11 June 2012 and last twelve days.[15][16] The NEEMO 16 crew successfully "splashed down" at 11:05 am on 11 June.[17] On the morning of 12 June, Peake and his crewmates officially became aquanauts, having spent over 24 hours underwater.[18] The crew safely returned to the surface on 22 June.[19]

During Expedition 44 Timothy Peake served as a backup astronaut for Soyuz TMA-17M spaceflight.[20][21]

International Space Station mission

Peake was launched to the International Space Station (ISS), on 15 December 2015, for Expeditions 46 and 47.[22][23] He launched successfully at 11:03 GMT from Baikonur Cosmodrome[24] on board Soyuz TMA-19M. The official website dedicated to his mission is principia.org.uk.[25]

During launch, as per tradition, each cosmonaut was allowed three songs to be played to them. Tim chose Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now", U2's "Beautiful Day" and Coldplay's "A Sky Full of Stars".[26]

Whilst docking, the Kurs docking navigation system failed, and a manual docking was performed by Yuri Malenchenko. This delayed docking with the ISS by 10 minutes. The Soyuz finally docked with the ISS at 17:33 GMT.[27] Peake received messages of support from the Queen and Elton John, after the successful docking.[28] His first meal at the ISS was a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea.[29]

A new years message by Tim Peake was broadcast by the BBC to celebrate 2016.[30][31]

Peake supported a spacewalk by two American astronauts on 21 December 2015. He participated in the first spacewalk outside the ISS by a British astronaut on 15 January 2016. The purpose of the spacewalk was to replace a faulty sequential shunt unit on the station's solar arrays.[32]

On 24 April 2016, Peake ran the 2016 London Marathon from the ISS treadmill. Peake became the first man to run a marathon from space, and the second person after Sunita Williams ran the 2007 Boston Marathon from the ISS.[33]

International Space Station partnership and the Nobel Peace Prize

At the UK National Student Space Conference in early 2014, Peake expressed his support for the initiative to award the International Space Station partnership the Nobel Peace Prize.

"I was delighted to read about the International Space Station and the discussions about it being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize because … it has been one of the most incredible international partnerships...[The ISS] really has brought many nations together through difficult times, and continues to do so."

Peake noted that with increasing constraints on space programs around the world, collaborative initiatives such as ISS will be necessary for future endeavours. "I think [the ISS] really has to be the model for future space exploration because with budgets becoming more and more constrained, then, really one nation is not going to have the capability to expand exploration out into the solar system, to Mars and beyond. We are going to have to work together on projects."[36]

Personal life

Peake is married to Rebecca, with whom he has two sons, and enjoys climbing, caving, cross-country running and triathlon.[37]

See also

References

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External links

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  33. ↑ Tim Peake 'runs' London Marathon from space
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