Peake, who is aiming to raise awareness for The Prince’s Trust, will complete the race on the International Space Station (ISS) which is due be launched from Kazakhstan on December 15.

The 43-year-old is due to run the 26.2 mile distance on a treadmill while watching a high definition video of the London course on a big screen, with a harness set to combat weightlessness allowing him to remain tethered to the equipment.

He will begin his effort at the same time as over 37,000 runners in the UK capital and the first British man in space admitted he had held the ambition to carry out the challenge immediately after being assigned his mission.

“The thing I’m most looking forward to is that I can still interact with everybody down on Earth, I’ll be running it with the iPad and watching myself running through the streets of London whilst orbiting the Earth at 400 kilometes above the surface and going 27,000km per hour,” he said.

“One of the biggest challenges I’ll be facing is the harness system, in microgravity I would float if I didn’t strap myself down to the treadmill so I have to wear a harness system that’s a bit similar to a rucksack.

“It has a waist-belt and shoulder straps that has to provide quite a bit of downforce to get my body onto the treadmill so after about 40 minutes that gets very uncomfortable.

“I don’t think I’ll be setting any personal bests, I’ve set myself a goal of anywhere between 3 hours 30 minutes to four hours.”

Peake, who completed the 1999 London Marathon in 3:18:50, will be monitored by the European Astronaut Centre in the German city Cologne to ensure he will maintain peak fitness for his return to Earth on June 5.

He will be able to take part due to the development of the Digital Virgin Money London Marathon, an interactive virtual-reality video, which was created by London Marathon Events in partnership with the digital fitness technology company RunSocial.

Having filmed the route during the 2013 and 2014 editions of the race, a video was created allowing runners from across the world to download and run the course on a treadmill, which will be played at their running speed.

“Tim’s mission will undoubtedly inspire a generation of children to explore science and space,” said Hugh Brasher, event director of the Virgin Money London Marathon.

“We hope that this extraordinary marathon run in space will also inspire that generation to run.”

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