KSC01pp0754

Members of the STS-100 crew, dressed in protective clothing, take a look at part of the mission payload, the Canadian robotic arm, SSRMS, from the top of a workstand in the Space Station Processing Facility. From left are Mission Specialists John L. Phillips, Umberto Guidoni and Yuri V. Lonchakov. Guidoni is with the European Space Agency and Lonchakov is with the Russian Space and Aviation Agency. The arm is 57.7 feet (17.6 meters) long when fully extended and has seven motorized joints. It is capable of handling large payloads and assisting with docking the Space Shuttle. The SSRMS is self-relocatable with a Latching End Effector, so it can be attached to complementary ports spread throughout the Station’s exterior surfaces. Mission STS-100 is scheduled to launch on Space Shuttle Endeavour April 19 at 2:41 p.m. EDT from Launch Pad 39A, KSC, with a crew of seven. Other crew members are Commander Kent V. Rominger, Pilot Jeffrey S. Ashby and Mission Specialists Scott E. Parazynski and Chris A. Hadfield, who is with the Canadian Space Agency