Umberto Guidoni

Well, we have two major goals. The most important one is to get the station arm on board the station, because that's this really milestone in the space station building since from now on they will be using this arm to continue building the space station.

For the first time in history all the major countries in the world are pushing together to reach this goal... building something in space that is really for all humankind.

And since Italy was involved in the space station as well as signed an agreement with NASA. And when the possibility to enter the 1996 Mission Specialist class.

In particular, this arm has 7 degrees-of-freedom that makes the overall motion of the arm very complex so that, before you start driving the arm, you should be very familiar with all the position it can get.

When this space walk will be completed, then the arm will be fully operational and ready for the next activity that will be pretty much the testing, the first flight testing of the space station arm.

During that space walk there will be some repositioning of the power so that the arm can be fully controlled by the robotic station that is in the Lab.

I started this whole endeavor really. And at the beginning we had the selection in Italy. And that was pretty much among people that had held previous experience in that particular satellite. So, I was in that, in a good position then.

Also we will be carrying food and clothes for the Expedition Two crew. And as well as spare parts for the EVA that will be conducted from the station in the following months.

And then I graduate two years later, in 1998, with my class. And, since then I've been here in Houston for training basically. And I was very happy to be assigned to this mission.

And so, in case we have contingencies and things that we cannot accomplish within the duration of the space walk, we have a buffer, I mean, in order to be able to complete the... what we want to accomplish.

I was, I remember, I still remember when the first time I pointed the telescope at the sky and I saw Saturn with the rings. It was a beautiful image.

And so, I will be probably, since I am not involved in all the activity, I will have some spare time to devote to document all this busy part of the flight.