Tim Peake live: First British astronaut boards International Space Station - latest news

The 43-year-old will be Britain's first astronaut on the ISS and the first British representative of the European Space Agency

Tim Peake arrives on the International Space Station (ESA Operations)

Tim Peake is due to launch his historic mission to the International Space Station shortly after 11am today. Here are the latest updates:

• How the astronaut's voyage to the ISS unfolded
• When will he head into space?
• The work and experiments Major Peake will be doing
• He said an emotional goodbye to his children this morning
• ...and has sent his last Earth-bound tweet: 'GO for flight!'
• This is what he's looking forward to the most
• 12 things that happen to your body in space
• Major Peake's parents worry about him more on the motorway
• How the former Army major became Britain's first ma in space

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Major Peake is due to be the first Briton to join the crew of the International Space Station (ISS) and the first fully British professional astronaut to be employed by a space agency.

His family and well-wishers gathered waving Union flags and cheering as he and his two crew companions departed from the Cosmonaut Hotel for the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan earlier today to prepare for launch.

It will take place at Launch Pad 1, in the Baikonur Cosmodrome, where Yuri Gagarin flew from to become the first man in space in 1961.

The Soyuz TMA-19 space capsule will be launched on a rocket, taking an estimated nine minutes to get into orbit, and six further hours to reach the ISS, 250 miles above Earth.

Additional reporting by PA