She flew with the Spacelab mission aboard the space shuttle Columbia in April 1998. During the flight, experiments were conducted concerning the effects of microgravity on the brains and nervous systems of the crew members, as well as on more than 2 000 live animals. She went on to join the Astronaut Support Personnel Team for Kennedy Space Center Operations, before returning to space in February 2010 aboard space shuttle Endeavour to help assemble the International Space Station. Hire was assigned to the Kennedy Space Center as an engineer in 1989 and selected as an astronaut in 1994. She has logged over 711 hours in space.