A solar-powered airplane finished crossing the United States on Saturday, landing in New York City after flying over the Statue of Liberty during its historic bid to circle the globe, the project team said. The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 4 a.m. local time after it took off about five hours beforehand at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania, the team reported on the airplane's website. Such a pleasure to land in New York! For the 14th time we celebrate sustainability," said the project's co-founder Andre Borschberg on Twitter after flying over the city and the Statue of Liberty during the 14th leg of the trip around the globe. The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where the journey began in March 2015. The solar cr...
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| Tim Peake |
Major Tim and fellow crew members Russian Yuri Malenchenko and American Tim Kopra, are due to dock with the ISS at 17:24 GMT (23:24 Kazakh time). The former Army pilot is making history as the first official UK astronaut. He was waved off by his wife and two sons at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan earlier on Tuesday. The launch was from the same place where Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space in 1961.At blast-off, the rocket generated 422.5 tonnes of thrust - equivalent to 26 million horse power. The launch went with no reported problems and after one minute, the rocket was soaring upwards at 1,000mph (1,600km/h). After two minutes, the four boosters strapped around the rocket were jettisoned. Zero gravity was reached by the Soyuz spacecraft after nine minutes of travel.Working with mission controllers on Earth, the crew will now be nudging the space capsule towards its rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS).
According to the European Space Agency (Esa), both the Soyuz capsule and the ISS should be visible in the sky shortly before the docking procedure this evening. Mr Peake will spend six months on board the ISS where he will conduct scientific experiments and carry out educational projects designed to attract young people into science.Earlier, he said goodbye to his family and friends including his wife, Rebecca, and two sons, Thomas, six, and Oliver, four.
Sitting on the shoulders of his grandfather, Tim's youngest son cried loudly, saying: "I want to go with Daddy." After the craft entered orbit, relatives and friends cheered and hugged.
Mr Peake's wife Rebecca was heard to say: "Wasn't it an amazing sight? I had the biggest smile on my face."The former Army major is the first Briton to join the crew of the ISS and is employed by Esa. On arrival, he and his two companions will join the trio already on board, including Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly who is spending a year on the orbiting station as part of a medical research programme.
Helen Sharman became the first British citizen to travel to space when she visited the Soviet space station Mir in 1991.
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