British ESA astronaut Tim Peake, a Prince's Trust Ambassador, will become the first man to run a marathon in space when he takes on the challenge of the Digital Virgin Money London Marathon on the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday 24 April.
He will be running to raise awareness for The Prince’s Trust.
It will be another extraordinary first for Peake who is the first Briton to be selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) for a mission to the ISS and the first British man in space.
His mission launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on Wednesday 15 December and he is due to return to Earth on 5 June 2016.
Tim will run the 26.2 miles on a treadmill as the ISS orbits the earth. He will start at 10:00 GMT on Sunday 24 April, the same time that the 37,000+ runners set off from Greenwich to cover the famous marathon distance on Earth.
To combat weightlessness, Tim will wear a harness that tethers him to the treadmill as he runs, while watching the HD video of the iconic London course on the big screen in front of the treadmill. The tension on the harness dictates the speed that he can run.
Tim has been a keen runner since his teenage years and ran the London Marathon on Earth in 1999, finishing in 3:18.50. He is not expecting to beat that time on 24 April as his medical team at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany will be monitoring his preparations and run carefully to ensure he is at optimum fitness for his return to earth eight weeks later.
Tim said: "As soon as I got assigned to my mission to the International Space Station, I thought wouldn’t it be great to run the Digital Virgin Money London Marathon from onboard the ISS.
“The thing I’m most looking forward to is that I can still interact with everybody down on Earth. I’ll be running it with the iPad and watching myself running through the streets of London whilst orbiting the Earth at 400km above the surface and going 27,000km per hour.
“One of the biggest challenges I’ll be facing is the harness system. In microgravity I would float if I didn’t strap myself down to the treadmill so I have to wear a harness system that’s a bit similar to a rucksack. It has a waistbelt and shoulder straps.
“That has to provide quite a bit of downforce to get my body onto the treadmill so after about 40 minutes that gets very uncomfortable. I don’t think I’ll be setting any personal bests. I’ve set myself a goal of anywhere between 3:30 to 4 hours.
“I am running in space to raise awareness of The Prince’s Trust, which has a team running on the ground – Team Astronaut – while I’m running on the International Space Station.”
