In 1993, he also started training to fly the first of two joint European-Russian missions to the space station Mir, called Euromir 95. In 1994, he was the first ESA astronaut to fly into space with Russia, on board Soyuz TM-20, and returned to Earth on Soyuz TM-19. During his three spaceflights he spent a total of 49 days, 21 hours and 38 minutes in space.