Tim Peake's Soyuz capsule docks safely with the ISS

British astronaut Tim Peake has safely made contact with the International Space Station (ISS) after blasting off in a rocket from Kazakhstan this morning.

The Russian Soyuz TMA-19 capsule, carrying Mr Peake, 43, Russian Commander Yuri Malenchenko and US astronaut Tim Kopra, docked at 17.33, six and a half hours after lift off at 11.03 GMT.

It spent just over 30 minutes completing its fly-around as the astronauts on-board made sure every part of the capsule was precisely aligned with the station, while travelling at a speed of 20-30 centimetres per second.

Tensions rose as there were difficulties in manoeuvring the capsule into position. Yuri took manual control and backed the capsule away before making a second attempt to re-align it with the station's docking port.

This put the docking behind its scheduled time of 17.23 GMT by just over 10 minutes.