British astronaut Tim Peake blasts off in show of fire and thunder in Kazakhstan

A Russian rocket carrying British astronaut Major Tim Peake into space blasted off from Kazakhstan yesterday in a spectacular display of fire and thunder.

The 305-tonne Soyuz launch rocket took off into a clear sky from the same spot on the Baikonur Cosmodrome where the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, was shot into orbit in 1961.

Rising slowly at first from a conflagration of smoke and flames, the rocket quickly picked up speed until it became a bright star fading from sight.

After one minute, it was soaring upwards at 1,600kph and crashing through the sound barrier.

Two minutes into the flight, the four first-stage boosters strapped around the rocket fuselage were jettisoned.

Peake’s wife, Rebecca, two sons, Thomas, 6, and Oliver, 4, and other members of his family watched the take-off from a VIP viewing area about a mile from the launch pad.

Representatives of the world’s media observed from an adjacent viewing platform.

Peake, 43, and his crew companions, Russian commander Yuri Malenchenko and US astronaut Tim Kopra, entered the tiny Soyuz TMA-19 space capsule capping the top of the rocket two and a half hours before the launch.

Conditions were perfect with clear, blue skies and hardly a breath of wind.

At blast-off, the rocket generated 422.5 tonnes of thrust — equivalent to 26m horse power.

It took just six minutes for the second stage of the rocket to separate and eight minutes for the Soyuz capsule to detach and enter preliminary orbit. News that the craft had entered space was greeted with rapturous applause by friends and relatives on the ground who hugged each other with relief.

Last tweet before launch - GO for flight! Thanks for all the good luck messages - phenomenal support! #Principia pic.twitter.com/8jbxejHEEe

— Tim Peake (@astro_timpeake) December 15, 2015

At a press conference on Monday, Peake told how he was eagerly looking forward to seeing the earth from his capsule in space.

The crew will take six hours to rendezvous with the International Space Station, which passed directly over the launch site just before lift-off.

Prior to docking, they have to catch up with the space station, which travels at 28,000kph at an average altitude of 350km.

A former army aviator and helicopter test pilot, Peake is the first Briton to join the crew of the ISS.