A leading independent is lending new meaning to the phrase “old school tie” as it prepares to send one into space.

Millfield School in Somerset will send a tie into the cosmos aboard the space shuttle Discovery when it launches later this month.

Astronaut Nicole Storr, whose husband Chris Storr is a Millfield alumnus, is taking the tie on board as a personal memento.

Nasa’s guidelines allow crew members to take one item “from organisations outside the aerospace community” for the duration of the flight.

The mission will be the 39th and final flight of Discovery and the 133rd and penultimate flight of Nasa’s Space Shuttle programme, which began in April 1981.

John Davies, secretary of the Millfield Society, said: “On its return to earth the old school tie will be framed and mounted at the school for future generations to see the first, and perhaps only, British old school tie to travel into space.”