Major Tim phones home from space - gets voicemail

British astronaut Major Tim Peake had to leave an answer message for his parents after calling them from the International Space Station only to find that they had "popped out".

British astronaut Major Tim Peake had to leave an answer message for his parents after calling them from the International Space Station only to find that they had "popped out".

Nigel and Angela Peake, who travelled to Kazakhstan to see the rocket launch last week, had gone out for an hour to visit their daughter when Peake decided to "phone home" from space.

Peake's father, Nigel, 74, of Westbourne, West Sussex, told ITV News: "It was quite surreal. We'd popped out for about an hour to see our daughter who lives nearby, came home to an answer phone message, 'Hello, this is your son from the International Space Station'.

"We're out when he calls! That message is going to stay there in perpetuity, I can assure you."

Nigel Peake said that they will have a cardboard cut-out of their son at the Christmas table.

"He will be with us around the Christmas festive table as a giant cardboard cut-out which the people in the village very kindly made for the celebration party they had on launch day," he said. "We've now borrowed him so he's standing in the corner of the room so he'll be here with us when we carve the turkey."

Peake, 43, a former Army Air Corps officer and helicopter test pilot, spent most of the day helping two crewmates to embark on a space walk.

US Nasa astronauts Tim Kopra and Scott Kelly left the space station to free a jammed robotic trolley to allow a supply ship to dock later this week.

Peake is the first Briton aboard the space station, and the first fully British professional astronaut employed by a space agency.Telegraph Group Ltd