He flew as a research-astronaut on two Soyuz missions: the first linked with Salyut 7 (June 1982), the second docked with the Russian space station Mir for 22 days (November 1988). During this flight, Chrétien became the first Western European to make a space walk. In September 1997, he docked again with Mir, as a mission specialist aboard the space shuttle Atlantis. Chrétien was selected as an astronaut in 1980 and retired in 2001.