First Belarusian female cosmonaut Marina Vasilevskaya to communicate with BSU students from ISS

The first female cosmonaut of Belarus, Marina Vasilevskaya, will communicate with students of the Belarusian State University (BSU) from the International Space Station (ISS), sb.by reports with reference to the BSU press service

“The communication session with the ISS will be held on March 29th at 17pm in BSU. Specialists of the Faculty of Radiophysics and Computer Technologies of BSU will establish a direct communication signal with the ISS at 17:50 Minsk time, when it will fly over Belarus. During the ten-minute session, the students will be able to communicate with the cosmonauts of the crew of the 21st Visiting Expedition to the ISS (VE-21), and also greet their compatriot Marina Vasilevskaya,” the press service informed.

According to the BSU press service, this meeting will be held within the framework of the onboard experiment About Gagarin from Space, which is included in the scientific flight programme of the Belarusian cosmonaut. In addition, Marina Vasilevskaya will conduct experiments with lactoferrin (LTF protein), and take pictures of certain areas of the Belarusian territory so that the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus can compare images from the station, the Earth remote sensing satellite, a drone aircraft, and ground information. Another experiment is related to the study of bacteria and their effects on people, materials, optics, and radio electronics in space.

The broadcast of the communication session will be available on the BSU YouTube channel.

Marina Vasilevskaya became the first cosmonaut in the sovereign history of Belarus. She arrived at the ISS on March 25th on the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft. The VE-21 also includes the commander of the spacecraft, Hero of Russia, the native of Belarus Oleg Novitsky, and American NASA flight engineer, astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson. The duration of the VE-21 crew's work on the Russian segment of the ISS will be 12 days.