We're so excited to announce that world famous British astronaut and former International Space Station crew member, Tim Peake, will headline the Data Summit in Edinburgh as part of the UK's biggest data and artificial intelligence festival, DataFest. This year's key theme '#BeyondData' will focus on the impact data and AI has on the world and the future potential of the sector to help realise innovation across business and wider society, with a key focus on the challenges and opportunities data and AI presents. Now in its fourth year, DataFest has swiftly grown into a key calendar event for professionals working in the sector across the UK and further afield – attracting more than 4,000 visitors in 2019. The signing of Tim Peake marks our first major speaker announcement for the 2020 event, with more to follow in coming months. Famous for spending six months on the international space station, Tim completed approximately 3000 orbits of the earth, and covered a distance of 125 million kilometres.

Astronaut Tim Peake has launched a competition to name the British-made Mars rover set to search for life on the red planet -- and'Rover McRoverface' is already in the running. The rover is scheduled to land on the red planet in August 2021 and will be part of a mission to investigate how Mars evolved and whether it has conditions for life. People with suggestions can submit them on a designated website set-up by the European Space Agency (ESA). However, it is not a popularity poll, with an expert panel scheduled to make the final decision. As a result, 'Rover McRoverface' is unlikely to be the winning entry.

Here's your chance to name the European rover that will go to Mars in 2020. Currently called ExoMars, the six-wheeled robot needs something a bit more engaging and inspiring for when it lands on the Red Planet. Astronaut Tim Peake is leading the hunt for a great moniker. He wants everyone to go to a special website set up for the purpose and enter a suggestion. But don't think "Spacey McSpaceFace" is a goer because this is not an online poll.

Britain's first astronaut has said the UK risks becoming a "backward nation" if the government does not pay to send more people into space. Helen Sharman believes the country would lose many of the benefits of Tim Peake's mission if a commitment to more flights is not made very soon. Ms Sharman said that this was the UK's "last chance" to be involved "in the future of the human race". She spoke to BBC News on the eve of the 25th anniversary of her spaceflight. The government has effectively paid for one spaceflight, Tim Peake's, according to Ms Sharman.

Tim Peake is set to control a robot rover while orbiting the Earth from space in a pioneering experiment at midday BST (7am ET) today. The British astronaut will remotely navigate the explorer through a simulated Martian landscape from the International Space Station today. The experiment, part of the ExoMars project, will take place in a hangar at Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage. The British astronaut (pictured) will remotely navigate the'Bridget' explorer through a simulated Martian landscape from the International Space Station today. Major Peake tweeted yesterday: 'Looking forward to giving rover Bridget in Stevenage, UK, a test-drive from space.' Building on previous test and experiment campaigns, the European Space Agency, UK Space Agency and Airbus Defence and Space UK are working together to investigate distributed control of robots in a simulated planetary environment.

UK astronaut Tim Peake will get to drive a rover on Mars shortly. Or, at least, that is the scenario he is facing in a challenging experiment. In reality, the Briton, currently on the International Space Station, will command a robot to roll around a giant sandpit in Stevenage that simulates the surface of the Red Planet. It is part of a European Space Agency project that aims to learn how astronauts can control remote systems on other worlds. Known as Meteron (Multi-Purpose End-To-End Robotic Operation Network), the programme has already seen Danish ISS crewman Andreas Mogensen get a robot on Earth to put pegs in a series of holes.