with the European Space Agency. He flew aboard the Soyuz mission launched in July 1992, spending 14 days conducting joint Soviet–French scientific experiments, and aboard the space shuttle Columbia in July 1999, which deployed the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. He was selected as a French astronaut in 1985. He trained at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in 1986 and NASA's Johnson Space Center in 1995. He became a CapCom (spacecraft communicator) for the International Space Station, and on 1 May 2003 was also appointed as head of the Astronaut Division of the European Space Agency. He retired from being an astronaut that same year.