SCIENCE BOND

He had to command a robot rover on Earth, driving it across a big sandpit in Stevenage, near London, that simulated the surface of Mars.  The Briton experienced some software glitches, but achieved his objectives.  These involved finding a series of painted targets in a darkened room that had been set up to represent a cave on the Red Planet.  It was all part of a European Space Agency (Esa) project which aims to learn how astronauts can control remote systems on other worlds.  Known as Meteron (Multi-Purpose End-To-End Robotic Operation Network), the programme has already seen Danish ISS crewman Andreas Mogensen get a robot on Earth to precisely place some pegs in a set of holes . But Major Tim's job, which got under way at 15:00 BST (14:00 GMT), took things up a notch in terms of complexity.One of his big obstacles was time. His control link had to transmit down to Earth, bounce through numerous communications nodes, before reaching the robot in its simulatio...

Astronauts Tim Kopra and Scott Kelly, from the US space agency Nasa, are going outside the ISS to fix a broken component.  As they suited up and prepared to go out into space, they received assistance from Tim Peake and Sergey Volkov.  Mr Peake arrived at the ISS on Tuesday.  He is the first UK astronaut to be selected by the European Space Agency and will spend six months aboard the space stationThe space walk was due to start at 13:10 GMT (08:10 EST) and should last between three and three-and-a-half hours, Nasa said.  But the astronauts' preparations proceeded faster than expected and the walk commenced at about 12:45 GMT."It will be a very busy and interesting day for Tim," said Libby Jackson from the UK Space Agency.  The space walk is the seventh time ISS crew members have ventured outside in 2015.  It is taking place so the astronauts can try to fix a stalled component called the "mobile transporter" - a rail car that moves a robotic arm up an...

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...

On Saturday, the Soyuz crew module was attached to its rocket at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.  We watched as the completed vehicle was loaded onto a flat-bed transporter, ready to be carried to the launch pad.  Mr Peake and two other crew members will launch to the International Space Station on Tuesday 15 December.  During his seven-month stay on the orbiting outpost, the former Army helicopter pilot will carry out a programme of experiments and educational activities.  He will be accompanied on the flight by Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and US astronaut Timothy Kopra.The Soyuz spacecraft - which carries the crew to the ISS - and its rocket are assembled at adjacent facilities at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.  On Friday, the crew module was transported by train from its assembly site - known as Building 254 - to the huge hangar-like facility designated Building 112. More than 40 years ago, Building 112 housed a giant (105m-high) rock...