BRITISH astronaut Tim Peake will touch down in York again next month to deliver a lecture to hundreds of people.

Tim launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in December 2015, returning in June 2016 after a successful six-month mission.

Last November, Tim was the special guest at the UK Space Agency’s Schools Conference at the University of York.

Following the conference, he was due to give a public lecture at the university but this was postponed. This will now take place on September 26 at the university’s Central Hall.

All those that had tickets for the November 2016 event were offered first choice on the rescheduled event. No more tickets are available for the lecture, which about 1,000 people are expected to attend.

The University of York’s dean of faculty for the sciences, professor Brian Fulton, said: “I am thrilled that Tim Peake will hopefully be joining us and I look forward to an event which will allow many hundreds of people to share in the excitement of the UK space programme.”

During the schools conference, there was a welcome surprise for Tim, as it was announced he had been made the UK’s first honorary Stem ambassador. The National Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) Learning Centre is based at the University of York.

On the day, he gave an inspiring talk about his time living and working on the space station to more than 400 students from schools across Britain, who successfully applied to attend the conference.

Children were then able to present their work to Tim through talks and exhibitions, as well as experts from the UK Space Agency, the European Space Agency, partner organisations, and the space sector.

Tim explained that he spent two weeks in quarantine before his Principia mission.

He told youngsters about his “wild ride” into space.

“I found it very addictive the feeling of G-force travelling into space,” he commented.

While in space, Tim had the opportunity to do a space walk and control a rover back on Earth from the space station.

As well as carrying out science work, Tim said an important part of the mission was about engaging young people. Among the children at the conference were pupils from Knavesmire Primary School in York, who were members of South Bank Space Club.

The youngsters presented their findings from all the experiments and space-related activities they have taken part in. These include experiments about gravity, launching rockets and laying out a scale model of the solar system on Knavesmire using fruit.