He was the flight engineer of the fourth resident crew on the International Space Station, launched on Endeavour on 5 December 2001 and, with Carl Walz, he set what was then a US space flight endurance record of 196 days. His previous three space shuttle flights include the Discovery mission in September 1993 that deployed the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite. In January 2003 he was assigned as an instructor for two years at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, California. Bursch was selected as an astronaut in 1990 and in June 2005 retired from NASA to join The Aerospace Corporation as national reconnaissance office chair at the Naval Postgraduate School.