UK astronaut Tim Peake leaves ISS for journey back to earth

At exactly 6.52am, UK time, the spacecraft that will carry Major Peake and his two crew mates back to Earth undocked from the International Space Station (ISS).

Sprung hooks attaching the Soyuz TMA-19M to the space station were released to free the craft which took the three men into orbit on December 15.

An outside camera showed the spacecraft backing away from the space station with the Earth turning slowly below.

Some four hours earlier Major Peake, American Colonel Tim Kopra, and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko had scrambled from the space station into the Soyuz.

Closing the hatch marked the official end of Major Peake’s historic mission, which earned him an honour from the Queen for “extraordinary service beyond our planet”.

Major Peake was the first British astronaut to be sent to the ISS by the European Space Agency (Esa).

The father-of-two took part in more than 250 experiments, performed a space walk, ran the London Marathon on a treadmill, and inspired more than a million schoolchildren.

The trip home involves a hair-raising plunge through the atmosphere in the tiny middle section of the Soyuz, the descent module.

Friction on the spacecraft’s heat shield will slow its speed from 17,398 mph (28,000 kph) to 514 mph (827 kph) and raise the outside temperature to 1,600C.

The rapid deceleration will push the crew back into their shock-absorbing seats with a force of around five gee - five times normal Earth gravity.

One Nasa astronaut, Doug Wheelock, has described the experience of a Soyuz descent as “like going over Niagara falls in a barrel, but the barrel is on fire”.