aerospace & space
How to become an astronaut?
Alongside this, more than half of them have engineering expertise. A third have physics expertise and 11 per cent have a background in medicine.
On average, the current set of astronauts have spent 100 days in space. Tim Peake will have spent 185 days in space by the time he returns on 18 June, despite having no experience of space before taking off for the ISS.
Only seven British individuals have ventured to space, with an eighth just a month away:
Helen Sharman: The 27-year-old from Sheffield became the first Briton in space in 1991
Michael Foale: The most experienced British-born astronaut in history. 375 days in orbit between 1992-2004
Mark Shuttleworth:South African/British entrepreneur became the second ever self-funded space tourist in 2002
Piers Sellers:Completed three space missions, 2002-2010
Nicholas Patrick: Clocked over 300 hours in space, 2006-2010
Richard Garriott: Journeyed to ISS in 2008 as a self-funded space to Gregory Johnson Piloted two spaceflights in 2008 and 2011
Tim Peake: On a five-month mission on the ISS since December 2015
Everyone knows that Tim Peake became the first Briton to serve a mission as an ISS astronaut as his rocket arrived at the International Space Station from Kazakhstan in December 2015. Tim has a background as a test pilot and a British Army Air Corps officer.
Peake - originally from Chichester and a graduate of the Royal Sandhurst Military Academy - beat 8,000 other applicants to bag one of only six places on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) astronaut training program.But do you know how is the European Space Agency is?
The ESA was established in 1975, and since then the agency has recruited 28 astronauts. 15 are still active today.
Of these, 25 have been men and only three have been women. One of these women, Marianne Merchez, never undertook a space mission.
Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, spending
199 days and sixteen hours on the ISS in 2014/15.
Half of Europe's astronauts have had previous experience of flying.
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