Tim Peake retires as an astronaut

Major Tim Peake is the UK’s first official astronaut and in 2015 became the first British astronaut to go to the International Space Station (ISS). 

However, he was not the first Briton in space.  

According to the British Interplanetary Society, Major Peake is the seventh person born in the UK to have left Earth. 

Here are the people who have and the order in which they did it:

Helen Sharman – 1991

A former chemist for a chocolate company, Helen Sharman won her place on a space trip after answering an advertisement she heard on the radio.

She was selected from more than 13,000 applicants to be the British member of the Soviet scientific space mission, Project Juno, and travelled to the Mir space station in 1991.

During her eight days in space she carried out a series of medical and agricultural experiments. 

Michael Foale – 1992

Having been born in Lincolnshire, Michael Foale went to school in Kent and later studied at the University of Cambridge.

In 1983 he worked in mission control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center before being selected as an astronaut candidate four years later.

Mr Foale – who has US citizenship – went to space six times between 1992 and 2003. He still considers Cambridge to be his hometown. 

Piers Sellers – 2002

Another NASA astronaut who went to school in Kent. 

Piers Sellers later studied at Edinburgh University and Leeds University before moving to the US in 1982 and joining NASA Nasa’s astronaut corps four years later. 

He went to the ISS in 2002, 2006 and 2010.

Nicholas Patrick – 2006

Nicholas Patrick was born in North Yorkshire and went to Harrow School before studying engineering at the University of Cambridge.

After graduating, he moved to Boston to work as an aircraft engineer and became a US citizen in 1994.

He was selected by NASA as an astronaut candidate in June 1998 and completed his first space mission in 2006.

Patrick flew to the ISS again four years later and logged 638 hours in space before retiring as an astronaut in 2012.

Gregory H Johnson – 2008

Having been born in South Ruislip, north-west London, Gregory H Johnson went to school in the US.

He later flew F-15 jets during the first Gulf War before launching to the ISS as a pilot on Space Shuttle Endeavour in 2008.

Johnson was also a pilot for the final flight of Endeavour and the penultimate flight of the Space Shuttle Program.

Richard Garriott – 2008

Known to avid computer game fans as ‘Lord British’, space tourist Richard Garriott paid about $30 million (£17 million) for a 10-day trip to the ISS.

He was born in Cambridge in the UK to American parents and followed in the footsteps of his father when he launched to space in 2008. 

Owen Garriott was a NASA astronaut who spent 60 days aboard the Skylab space station in 1973, and 10 days aboard Spacelab-1 on a Space Shuttle mission in 1983. 

His son was a computer games designer who also ran a company operating commercial trips to space.

Tim Peake

Tim Peake is the UK’s first official astronaut and in 2015 became the first British astronaut to go to the ISS.

But according to the British Interplanetary Society, Major Peake is the seventh person born in the UK to have left Earth, after Sharman, Foale, Sellers, Patrick, Johnson and Garriott.

He spent six months on the ISS between December 2015 and June 2016, completing approximately 3,000 orbits of the Earth and covering a distance of 78 million miles (125 million km). 

Major Peake also famously ran the 2016 London Marathon on a treadmill on the ISS.

He has said he hopes to embark on a second mission to space and become the first British person to set foot on the moon.