European Space Agency Astronaut Tim Peake of the UK arrived at the International Space Station today following a smooth launch and four orbit accelerated rendezvous. Tim and fellow travelers NASA’s Tim Kopra and RSA’s Yuri Malenchenko lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome at 6:03 AM EST today and once in orbit begun there four orbit, six hour journey to the station.
The crew had to perform a manual docking after the KURS automated docking was aborted when the craft was just 20 metres away from the station.
Tim’s mission called Principia will see him stay at the station for six months during which time he will perform numerous experiments including interacting with two Raspberry PI’s that were recently launched to the station aboard the Cygnus spacecraft. The PI’s will be executing programs created by school children around the UK which were selected during a competition.
Tim is the second UK astronaut to travel into space and the first to the ISS, the previous traveler Helen Sharman visited the Mir station.
Current station commander Scott Kelly posted the following picture of the launch captured from the station today.
#Soyuz blasts through the atmosphere on its way to @Space_Station! #SoyuzTMA19M #soyuzlaunch #YearInSpace pic.twitter.com/mtulhiyiEd
— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) December 15, 2015
Video of launch
Video of arrival and docking
Video of the hatch opening
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