On 6 July, the spacecraft Soyuz MS-01 is scheduled to blast-off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, headed for the International Space Station (ISS). On board, will be Dr Kate Rubins, who, along with Anatoli Ivanishin and Takuya Onishi, will be part of the 48th expedition to the ISS, due to return in November this year.

Before training with NASA, Kate worked as a microbiologist, most recently at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, where she worked on emerging viruses such as the Ebola and Lassa viruses.

For this month's podcast, we caught up with Kate as she prepared for her mission, and chatted about the experiments she'll be undertaking in space, what it's like to train to be an astronaut, and whether a pipette works in microgravity...

Image credit: NASA, public domain

Music:

Podington Bear – Bountiful

Alex Fitch – Ronny