VIDEO-Britain salutes its space hero | euronews, world news

A Soyuz space craft has successfully docked with the International Space Station. There was a slight delay due to a failure with the automatic docking procedure but it did nothing to dampen the arrival of the newest guests.

Along with a Russian and an American, Britain can be forgiven for focusing on Tim Peake – the nation’s first astronaut to visit the station.

Tim gave his first impressions on a link back to earth:

“Well, you know it was a beautiful launch and we got launched straight into night and got on with the work. But that first sunrise was absolutely spectacular. And we also got the benefit of a moonrise on the first orbit as well, which was beautiful to see,” said Tim Peake who is a European Space Agency Astronaut.

Peake, who is a former army major, is the first astronaut to represent the British government. The first Briton in space was Helen Sharmen, who travelled on a Soviet spacecraft for eight days in 1991.

Peake along with Commander Yuri Malenchenko and Tim Kopra will spend the next six months on the space outpost, which may be tough for their families but they will be engaged in vital work including experiments which could have beneficial consequences for medical research .

http://www.euronews.com/2015/12/16/britain-salutes-its-space-hero/