Tim Peake

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 and International Space Station (ISS) crew member.

He is the first British ESA astronaut, the sixth person born in the United Kingdom to visit 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). He began the ESA's intensive astronaut basic training course in September 2009 and graduated on 22 November 2010.

Early life

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

Career

Military and aeronautical

Upon graduation from Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1992, Peake served as a platoon Commander with the Royal Green Jackets. Peake became a qualified helicopter pilot in 1994 and a qualified flight instructor in 1998, graduating from the Defence Helicopter Flying School at RAF Shawbury 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.