This interview with ESA astronaut Tim Peake was recorded in Cologne, Germany, one day after his return from a six-month stay on the International Space Station.
Tim Peake, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and commander Yuri Malenchenko landed in the steppe of Kazakhstan on Saturday, 18 June in their Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft at 09:15 GMT. The trio spent 186 days on the International Space Station.
The landing brings Tim Peake’s Principia mission to an end but the research continues. Tim is the eighth ESA astronaut to complete a long-duration mission in space. He was the third after Alexander Gerst and Andreas Mogensen to fly directly to ESA’s astronaut home base in Cologne, Germany, for medical checks and for researchers to collect more data on how Tim’s body and mind have adapted to living in space.
The first news conference with ESA astronaut Tim Peake on return to Earth after spending 186 days in space on the International Space Station on his Principia mission.
The media event was held at ESA’s astronaut centre in Cologne, Germany, 21 July just three days after landing on Earth. The European Astronaut Centre is the home base of all ESA astronauts
Tim Peake, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and commander Yuri Malenchenko landed in the steppe of Kazakhstan on Saturday, 18 June in their Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft.
The landing brings Tim Peake’s Principia mission to an end but the research continues. Tim is the eighth ESA astronaut to complete a long-duration mission in space. He is the third after Alexander Gerst and Andreas Mogensen to fly directly to the European Astronaut Centre for medical checks and for researchers to collect more data on how Tim’s body and mind have adapted to living in space.
ESA astronaut Tim Peake, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and commander Yuri Malenchenko landed in the steppe of Kazakhstan on Saturday, 18 June in their Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft. The trio spent 186 days on the International Space Station. The landing brings Tim Peake’s Principia mission to an end but the research continues. Tim is the eighth ESA astronaut to complete a long-duration mission in space. He is the third after Alexander Gerst and Andreas Mogensen to fly directly to ESA’s astronaut home base in Cologne, Germany, for medical checks and for researchers to collect more data on how Tim’s body and mind have adapted to living in space.
ESA astronaut Tim Peake shows how to draw blood for research on the International Space Station. Researchers often request samples before, during and after a spaceflight to examine differences.
The tubes of blood are put in a refrigerated centrifuge and then stored in the International Space Station’s –80°C freezer called MELFI for later analysis on Earth.
On 29 April 2016, ESA astronaut Tim Peake on the International Space Station took control of a rover, nicknamed ‘Bridget’, in the UK and over two hours drove it into a simulated cave and found and identified targets despite the dark and limited feedback information.
Before and after Tim came online from the orbiting Station, control of the rover was passed several times between engineers at the Airbus D&S ‘Mars Yard’ in Stevenage, UK, Belgium’s ISS User Support Centre in Brussels and ESA’s ESOC operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany. This complex real-time choreography was possible thanks to the ‘Internet in space’ – a network that tolerates disruptions – put in place by teams at ESOC. This network enables remote control of rovers or other devices in the difficult environment of space, with its long distances and frequent connection blackouts inevitable with orbital motion.
During the experiment, a representative mission scenario was set up in which the rover was commanded to go from a lit environment into a challenging dark location (simulating a cave or a shaded crater) and identified a number of science targets. The Mars yard (30 x 13 m) was split into two areas, one lit and one in the dark. From one end of the yard, Bridget was commanded from ESOC until it reached the edge of the shaded area. Then at the edge of the ‘cave’, control was passed to astronaut Tim Peake, on board the Station, who controlled Bridget to drive across the yard, avoiding obstacles and identifying potential science targets, which were marked with a distinctive ultraviolet fluorescent marker. Once the targets were identified and mapped, Tim drove the rover out of the shaded area and handed control back to ESOC, who drove the rover back to its starting point.
This video is a compressed extract that includes highlights of the experiment and includes scenes of the network control centre at ESOC, the Mars Yard at Stevenage and Tim Peake on the ISS. On audio, the voices of astronaut Time Peake, Lionel Ferra, the Eurocom ‘capcom’ controller at ESA’s Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, and Kim Nergaard, the ground segment manager at ESOC, can be heard periodically.
On 15 January ESA astronaut Tim Peake and NASA astronaut Tim Kopra stepped outside of the International Space Station to replace a failed power regulator and install cabling.
The meticulously planned and executed sortie was stopped early after Tim Kopra reported a small amount of water building up in his helmet. The two Tims worked in close cooperation with each other to return to the Space Station, with NASA commander Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Sergei Volkov waiting inside to help them out of their suits.
They left the confines of the weightless research laboratory at 12:48 GMT after their five-hour preparations to don their spacesuits and purge their bodies of nitrogen to avoid decompression sickness.
Tim Kopra went first to the far end of the Station’s starboard truss, with Tim Peake following with the replacement Sequential Shunt Unit. Swapping the suitcase-sized box was a relatively simple task but one that needed to be done safely while the clock was ticking.
With their main task complete, the Tims separated for individual jobs for the remainder of their time outside but was told by Mission Control to return to the airlock earlier than planned.
The 4 hour 43 minute spacewalk was the first for a British astronaut. The spacewalk officially ended at 17:31 GMT when the Tims began the repressurisation of the Quest airlock.
ESA astronaut Tim Peake, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and commander Yuri Malenchenko were launched into space 15 Decemeber 11:03 GMT from Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.
The launch marks the start of Tim Peake’s six-month Principia mission on the International Space Station running over 30 scientific experiments for ESA.
ESA astronaut Tim Peake, NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and commander Yuri Malenchenko were launched into space 15 Decemeber 11:03 GMT from Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.The launch marks the start of Tim Peake’s six-month Principia mission on the International Space Station running over 30 scientific experiments for ESA.Follow Tim Peake viatimpeake.esa.int and follow the whole mission on ESA’sPrincipia blog.
The iconic group Inspiral Carpets from Oldham, Greater Manchester, have dedicated their classic song Saturn V to ESA astronaut Tim Peake. Formed by musicians Graham Lambert and Stephen Holt in 1983, Inspiral Carpets were one of the bands associated with the ‘Madchester’ scene that came to prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The band send this message: “From Inspiral Carpets, with respect and love, to our friend Tim Peake!”
Tim Peake is set for launch to the International Space Station on his five-month Principia mission on 15 December 2015.
ESA astronaut Tim Peake answers questions from school children in Wiltshire, UK. Tim joined the hangout from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston where he is currently training for his six month Principia mission to the International Space Station, set for liftoff in December 2015.
The hangout was jointly hosted by ESA with +spacegovuk and +BBC Wiltshire. NASA’s Johnson Space Center provided support by hosting Tim in their Houston studio.
