Astronaut Piers Sellers is this week due to become only the third Briton to orbit the Earth when he joins a Nasa space shuttle mission.

The 47-year-old, originally from Crowborough, will follow in the space steps of Brits Helen Sharman and Michael Foale when the shuttle Atlantis launches on Wednesday.

Helen Sharman stayed aboard Russia's Mir space station for a week in 1991 and Michael Foale spent 145 days in space in 1997.

Like Foale, father-of-two Sellers had to become a US citizen to achieve his goal and now lives in Houston, Texas, close to the Nasa centre where he carries out his work.

Nasa selected him as an astronaut candidate in 1996. since then he has completed years of training and evaluation to prepare for the trip.

He is expected to attempt three space walks as part of the 11-day mission to carry out maintenance work on the international space station.

He also hopes to beat the record for a single space walk of 8 hours 56 minutes set by two Americans in 2000.

Watching the launch from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida will be Piers's wife Mandy, 46, and children Imogen, 17, and 14-year-old Tom.

We reported last month how Piers, 47, was preparing for the mission.

He said at the time: "I am tremendously excited. This launch is what I have striven for all my life."