Major Tim Peake CMG

Born in Chichester, England, on 7 April 1972, Tim was the first British ESA astronaut to visit the International Space Station. He launched on a Soyuz rocket on 15 December 2015 and landed back on Earth 18 June 2016, after 186 days in space. Commissioned into the Army Air Corps in 1992, Tim served on attachment with the Royal Green Jackets as a Platoon Commander in Northern Ireland before beginning flight training. He was awarded his Army Flying Wings in 1994. He flew on military operations in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland and Afghanistan and became a qualified helicopter instructor. Tim later graduated from the UK’s Empire Test Pilots’ School in 2005. As a test pilot, he was involved in numerous test flights on many different types of military helicopter, including working on assignment with Special Forces. On retirement from the British Army as a major in 2009, Tim was employed as a senior helicopter test pilot for AgustaWestland. During his flying career, he has logged over 3000 hours’ flying time on more than 30 types of helicopter and fixed wing aircraft, including the Apache, Hawk, Spitfire and Mi-17. He holds a commercial pilot’s licence and maintains his flying. Tim was selected as an ESA astronaut in May 2009. Along with his five ESA classmates, he graduated from astronaut basic training in November 2010. Tim spent three years conducting further training and operations in Mission Control, including becoming an aquanaut during NASA’s twelve-day underwater NEEMO 16 mission, prior to his assignment to a long-duration mission in 2013. During Tim’s Principia mission to the International Space Station, he conducted a spacewalk to repair the Station's power supply. Other highlights saw him take part in over 250 scientific experiments for ESA and international partners, dock two spacecraft to the Station and run over thirty educational outreach projects that have since reached more than two million students. Tim is married with two sons. Among his leisure activities he enjoys skiing, scuba diving, cross- country running, climbing and motorcycling. Tim is an ambassador for The Kings’s Trust, the Scouts, Great Ormond Street Hospital and has a close affiliation with and the Make-A-Wish foundation. He is also an ambassador for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) and works closely with the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA) and the UK government on their science, space and education programmes. Tim was a founding member of both the Defence Innovation External Advisory Panel and the Department of Science, Innovation & Technology non-executive Board. Tim is also a Strategic Advisor for Axiom Space, a US based company building a next-generation commercial space station, lunar space suits for the Artemis programme and Orbital Data Centres in addition to facilitating human spaceflight missions. In October 2023, Axiom Space and the UKSA signed a Memorandum of Understanding to pursue a commercially sponsored, UK mission. In December 2016, Tim was made a companion of the order of St.Michael and St.George (CMG) for distinguished service overseas.