US astronaut on upcoming space station mission

American Astronaut Kate Rubins and Russian Cosmonauts Sergey Ryzyikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov are preparing to take off for the International Space Station.

The three are set to head into space on board a Russian Soyuz space capsule from Kazakhstan in October.

Rubins, speaking from the Johnson Space Center in Houston on Wednesday, explained why biological research in space is valuable.

"The International Space Station offers us a really exciting opportunity to study things like three dimensional culture, you know, tissues and organs in microgravity in ways that we can't study on Earth because you get these delicate structures that will collapse under gravity conditions", she said.

She also said the crew is taking precautions during the coronavirus pandemic.

"When we have to do in-person training, for example, with the crews and some of the flight hardware, we all wear masks", she said..

We take social distancing measures and we sanitise the hardware as we're using it."