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1. This two-year programme is funded by The UK Space Agency and aims to inspire young minds with the wonders of human spaceflight and the importance of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematical skills that make spaceflight possible. Find out about the team behind Tim Peake and his mission and the technology required to travel to, live on and safely return from the International Space Station.

2. The UK Association for Science and Discovery Centres (ASDC) is a national charity that brings together the UK’s major science engagement organisations to play a strategic role in the nation’s engagement with science. Within our membership are over 60 of the nation’s largest publically accessible science centres, discovery centres, science museums and scientific bodies. Together our vision is for a society where people of all backgrounds and in all parts of the UK are inspired and fully involved with the sciences.

   Every year in the UK, 20 million people of all ages and backgrounds choose to get involved with science at one of the UK’s science and discovery centres or science museums. This equates to 385,000 people every week who come to our member centres to explore and discuss science in an involving and personal way. www.sciencecentres.org.uk

3. The UK Space Agency is at the heart of UK efforts to explore and benefit from space. It is responsible for all strategic decisions on the UK civil space programme and provides a clear, single voice for UK space ambitions.

   The Agency is responsible for ensuring that the UK retains and grows a strategic capability in the space-based systems, technologies, science and applications. It leads the UK’s civil space programme in order to win sustainable economic growth, secure new scientific knowledge and provide benefits to all citizens.

4. Tim Peake is the first British ESA astronaut. After more than three years of training with the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Astronaut Programme, Tim was selected to live and work on the International Space Station (ISS) for six months. He will carry out a comprehensive science programme and take part in a European education outreach programme in the build up to and during his mission. Tim is one of six astronauts who was selected from among 8,000 hopefuls. His flight is expected to take place in December 2015.

   Tim is working with the UK Space Agency to help build a strong programme of science. For example, Tim’s flight could expand our international competitiveness in health research, innovative materials and processes, or help us to achieve important scientific results in plasma physics, exobiology or bone and muscle research.

5. In addition to hard science, Tim’s combined programme helps to raise the profile of space with the general public and to inspire students and schoolchildren around the world. The UK will have 100,000 extra jobs in the Space Sector by 2030 and needs talented and creative women and men to design the future. We hope that some of the children inspired by Tim's mission could be the space scientists, engineers and developers of tomorrow.

6. The first ever British Astronaut was a women named Helen Sharman who went into Space in 1991.