Major Timothy Nigel Peake CMG is a British Army Air Corps officer, former European Space Agency astronaut and International Space Station (ISS) crew member. He is the first British ESA astronaut, the second astronaut to bear a flag of the United Kingdom patch, the sixth person born in the United Kingdom to go on board the International Space Station and the seventh UK-born person in space. He began the ESA's intensive astronaut basic training course in September 2009 and graduated on 22 November 2010