Tim Peake: How the Sandhurst graduate became the first British citizen selected to be an astronaut

From his incredible Twitter page to his underwater missions for NASA, here's what you need to know about him

(Rex features)

Tim Peake is hoping that his mission to the international space station will inspire more young people to develop an interest in science and engineering.

Peake’s six month stint begins today, on Wednesday 15 December, when he will leave Earth to join the orbiting laboratory to carry out science research.

But an additional part of Peake’s mission is to share his experiences through social media, allowing a unique insight into the work of an astronaut to his 99,000 followers on Twitter.

So, before he heads off to boldly go where (a few) men have gone before, here’s everything you need to know about Tim Peake.

He beat 8,000 applicants to land the coveted job

There were only six places on the European Space Agency’s astronaut training programme. The process involves academic tests, fitness assessments and character interviews.

Peake’s appointment began as part of a concentrated push for Britain to be more involved in the ESA’s space travel. All previous British-born astronauts have had to change their nationality to become US citizens in order to ride Nasa’s space shuttle.

But in 2010, the launch of a UK space agency began in order to help Britain muscle in on aspirations to become a major player in space exploration over the next two decades.

He comes from a military background

After graduating from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1992, Peake served as a platoon Commander in the now defunct light infantry regiment, the Royal Green Jackets.

He later became a qualified helicopter pilot and later a flight instructor, graduating from the Empire Test Pilots School, so he’s got plenty of strings to his bow.

He's the UK's answer to Commander Chris Hadfield

Cdr Hadfield, from Canada, was his country's first professional astronaut, but gained a legion of fans on the Soyuz space capsule mission to and from the ISS, by performing a cover of the Bowie classic, Space Oddity. He now has close to one million followers on Twitter.

Peake is technically the first British citizen to be an astronaut; though there have been previous British people in space, they have had to change citizenship in order to fly with NASA due to the complicated rules about which countries can travel in space.

As part of Britain's involvement in the ESA, which aims to contribute billions to the global economy, he is something of a poster boy for the country's space programme.

He’s got a huge Twitter following

Maybe because being sent into space makes him infinitely more interesting than anyone else on the social networking site.

With 99,300 followers and counting, Peake has been busy telling the world about the preparations he’s had to take to get into shape for his mission, including eating special astronaut food to help his body transition to a new diet and getting several jabs, biopsies, x-rays and MRI scans.

He’s also a qualified aquanaut

And yes, that means he’s a bit like an astronaut but he spends his time underwater.

Peake began serving as an aquanaut in 2012 on board the Aquarius underwater laboratory during the NEEMO 16 undersea exploration mission.

He spent twelve days at the undersea research habitat, located at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The mission sought to test innovative solutions to engineering that would eventually help the team understand more about exploring asteroids.