On the 15th of December British astronaut Tim Peake (born in Chichester), will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket, accompanied by American astronaut Tim Kopra and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, which will take him to become the first ever British astronaut on the International Space Station. He'll be staying up there until early June next year, so approximately 6 months.
I believe BBC2 are planning to show his launch (it's scheduled for about 11am UK time) and arrival at the ISS (scheduled for the evening of the same day, all being well) live, and I would expect there to be fair bit of media coverage as we get closer to launch day.
I hope that someone, at some point while he's up there, opens communications with him from Earth by saying 'Ground Control to Major Tim'...missed opportunity if not.
I believe BBC2 are planning to show his launch (it's scheduled for about 11am UK time) and arrival at the ISS (scheduled for the evening of the same day, all being well) live, and I would expect there to be fair bit of media coverage as we get closer to launch day.
I hope that someone, at some point while he's up there, opens communications with him from Earth by saying 'Ground Control to Major Tim'...missed opportunity if not.