He was a payload specialist aboard the Discovery space shuttle mission in August 1997 to test the microgravity vibration isolation mount (MIM), on which he worked as its principal investigator. He was selected as a Canadian astronaut in 1983 and assigned to NASA's Johnson Space Center in 1998 to train for a future shuttle flight. He went on to perform training and technical duties at the Johnson Space Center, and handles microgravity programmes at the Canadian Space Agency. He retired in 2008.