Umberto Guidoni

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Umberto Guidoni

ASI/ESA Astronaut
Nationality	Italian
Status	Retired
Born	August 18, 1954 Rome, Italy
Other occupation	Researcher
Space time	27d 15h 12m
Selection	1996 NASA Group
Missions	STS-75, STS-100
Mission insignia

Umberto Guidoni (born in Rome, 18 August 1954) is an Italian politician and a former ESA astronaut. He is a veteran of two NASA space shuttle missions. He is a Member of the European Parliament, belonging to the Party of Italian Communists.

Guidoni earned a doctorate in astrophysics from the University of Rome La Sapienza in 1978 and worked in the Italian Space Agency (ASI) as well as in the European Space Agency (ESA). One of his research projects was the Tethered Satellite System, which was part of the payload of the STS-46 mission. Guidoni trained as an alternate payload specialist for this mission and made his first spaceflight aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia STS-75 in 1996, which included another test of the TSS system. Guidoni's second flight was aboard Endeavour STS-100 in 2001, when he was the first European to visit the International Space Station.

He retired from active astronaut status in June 2004.

In June 2004, he was elected to the European Parliament, and sits in the Group of the European United Left (GUE/NGL).