18/06/2016 Newsround

Good morning, guys, Martin here with Saturday's Newsround.

First up, it's official - at this very moment,

British astronaut Tim Peake is making his way back to Earth.

After spending six months living in space on board

the International Space Station, he's coming home.

In these pictures, we can see Major Peake and his crew boarding

the Soyuz capsule and saying a final goodbye to his crewmates

The capsule detached from the space station at around 3:30 this morning.

It's expected to land around 10:15 this morning.

Tim's said the things he's most looking forward to on his return

The pizza I understand, but I'm not so sure about the rain.

BBC reporter Pallab Ghosh is at Mission Control

Here he explains how what will happen to Tim's spacecraft

Will get lower and lower until it gets low enough to break into three

pieces. The middle section carrying the crew with -- will enter the

thick part of the Earth's atmosphere. Parachutes will open,

slowing the spacecraft down from four times the speed of sound to

about 50 mph. Then one second before the spacecraft is due to land,

thrusters will fire, slowing it down to about five miles per hour. Even

so, they are still going to land with quite a bump.

Well, Sarah Rainsford is in Kazahkstan, where Tim Peake

will land, and can tell us more about the atmosphere

there and what will happen when the Soyuz capsule touches down

This is the steps in Kazakhstan, a huge open space. It is an error like

this where Tim Peake will soon come hurtling back towards Earth. -- this

is the Steppes. They are going to be disorientated and weak so there are

rescue teams on hand to open the hatch and help them out onto solid

ground. After that, there are medical checks, some photographs for

the history books, then they will be taken by helicopter to the nearest

town then back home to be reunited with their families after six months

in outer space. Newsround's back just after midday

with more on Tim Peake's return to Earth and all the rest

of today's stories. Until then you can keep up to date

with the day's news online.