Professor Bosede Afolabi, FRCOG, FWACS, has won the Bill and Melinda Gates grant of $2,518,474 (N880,465,900).

 

 

 

 

 

EARLIER POST: ISS EXPEDITION 65 DOCKS

The 65th expedition to the International Space Station, ISS, has arrived and docked in the Rassvet module of the station.

This follows the successful launch using the three-stage Soyuz MS-18 rocket in Baikonour Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.

On docking and hatch opening, the new arrivals were received by the seven astronauts already in the ISS.

The 65 Expedition crew is made-up of NASA’s Flight Engineer, Mark Vande Hei;  Roscosmos Soyuz Commander, Oleg Novitskiy; and Roscomos Flight Engineer, Pyotr Dubrov.

This is the 3rd spaceflight for Novistskiy; 2nd for Hei and 1st for Dubrov.

They will replace the crew of MS-17 in Expedition 64 comprising: Commander Sergey Ryzhikov, Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchikov both from Roscosmos and NASA’s Flight Engineer Kate Rubins.

The MS-17 crew were launched on 21 October, 2020.

However, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Crew Dragon spacecraft with four astronauts, launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, US, on 15 November, 2020 joined them.

The SpaceX crew had NASA’s Commander, Shannon Walker and astronauts Michael Hopkins and Victor Glover, as well as JAXA’s Soichi Noguchi.

The arrival of MS-18 crew in Expedition 65 makes the astronauts in the ISS 10 in number.

The next NASA Command Crew Programme mission, SpaceX Crew-2 will be launched on 22 April, 2021 from the Kennedy Space Centre, Florida.

The SpaceX Crew-2 will have Commander Shane Kimbrough, Pilot Megan McArthur, both of NASA; Mission Specialist Thomas Pesquet of ESA and Mission Specialist Akihiko Hoshide of JAXA.

SpaceX Crew-1 astronauts will return after their arrival.

The MS-17 crew in Expedition 64 will return to Earth on 17 April, 2021.

 

pictures courtesy: nasa