Britain’s pride as Tim walks in space
As British astronaut makes history...
THE Union Jack crossed the final frontier yesterday when British astronaut Tim Peake embarked on a drama-filled space walk.
His six-hour mission was to make vital repairs to the International Space Station floating 250 miles above the Earth – but it was aborted more than two hours early.
Water had started leaking into the helmet of Colonel Tim Kopra, Peake’s colleague on the spacewalk, in a frightening repeat of a near-drowning two years ago.
Just after 1pm yesterday, as Major Peake floated out high above Earth, he described carrying the British flag into space as ‘a huge privilege’.
But four hours into the mission, a four-inch bubble of water inside Colonel Kopra’s helmet forced the two astronauts to return to the airlock of the ISS. The American told Mission Control in Houston that the bubble of liquid was growing and Nasa announced it was aborting the spacewalk.
The incident was similar to an emergency in 2013 when Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano almost drowned. A 1.5 litre bubble of water flooded his helmet, covering his eyes, ears, nose and part of his mouth, and making it difficult to breathe. Major Parmitano became completely disoriented and could not understand which way to head back into the ISS or see the handles he needed to hold to help him.
He said later that the upper part of his helmet had been full of water and he feared that his next breath would fill his lungs with water instead of air. By the time he was back to the airlock, there was so much water that he had to make way inside with his eyes closed. Nasa’s chief astronaut Chris Cassidy, said the discovery of water in Colonel Kopra’s suit caused ‘significant concern’ for the US space agency.
Despite having to cut short their mission, Major Peake and Colonel Kopra successfully completed the most important repairs to the Space Station.
Clambering some 200ft along its length, they replaced a faulty solar panel power controller called a sequential shunt unit, or SSU, to congratulations from fellow ISS crew members and colleagues, friends and relatives on Earth. Referring to the patch on the arm of the 43-year-old’s £8.4million spacesuit, space station commander Scott Kelly said: ‘The Union Jack has explored all over the world, now it’s exploring space.’ Tim Peake replied: ‘It’s great to be wearing it. A proud moment.’
Watching their son make history from their living room in Westbourne, Hampshire, Major Peake’s parents, Nigel and Angela, said: ‘It’s amazing, the photographs from space are incredible.
‘For us, we have immense pride, but also immense gratitude to all the people who are supporting Tim and the other astronauts.’
Asked what message he would send his son during the spacewalk, Mr Peake, 73, said: ‘I think I would simply say “Great job”.’
Writing on Twitter, Major Peake’s wife Rebecca, 43, thanked her husband for ‘taking our boys with you into the vacuum of space’. She posted an image which seemed to show Major Peake carried a photo of sons, Thomas, seven, and Oliver, four, with him on his walk.
The mission heralds a U-turn for the UK government which previously preferred space exploration using satellites.
The Astronomer Royal, Professor Sir Martin Rees, hailed the spacewalk as a ‘national landmark’, saying : ‘I’m delighted that Tim is up there.’
‘A proud moment’