LONGUEUIL, QUE.  Astronaut David Saint-Jacques became just the fourth Canadian to complete a spacewalk Monday, accomplishing several tasks alongside NASA astronaut Anne McClain in about six-and-a-half hours before returning inside the International Space Station.

Saint-Jacques, 49, is the first Canadian to perform a spacewalk since 2007.

After re-entering the space station, he hailed the mission as “a glimpse of the future as we venture further into space.” He said the international effort was an excellent example of collaboration.

“Because when we manage to look beyond our differences, we achieve things that seem impossible,” Saint-Jacques said. “That’s how we progress.”

McClain, who was performing her second spacewalk, thanked the ground team. “We know that it’s a lot of hard work, and a lot of big sighs of relief as soon as the hatch did get closed,” she said.

The spacewalk appeared to run like clockwork, with Saint-Jacques and McClain actually leaving the space station half-an-hour earlier than scheduled.

Retired astronaut Dave Williams said astronauts prefer to have a cushion against the unpredictability of working in space. “We like to get ahead on the timeline and stay ahead, because you never know what’s going to happen during a spacewalk,” Williams said at the Canadian Space Agency headquarters in suburban Montreal.

Williams holds the Canadian record for the most spacewalks, with three for a total of just under 18 hours outside the space station during a 2007 mission. Those came at a time when there was extensive building going on at the station.

Now, astronauts are transitioning mostly to maintenance tasks, which partly explains the long gap since the last Canadian spacewalk by Williams. The other two Canadian astronauts to have performed the feat are Steve MacLean in 2006 and Chris Hadfield in 2001.

Saint-Jacques is on his first posting to the space station, which began on Dec. 3. After emerging from the station, the Canadian performed a few brief movements to get used to his suit before diving into the to-do list, which took 6 hours, 29 minutes.

The tasks took the pair all over the station and included relocating a battery adapter plate, upgrading the station’s wireless communication system and connecting jumper cables along the midpoint of the station’s main truss to give Canadarm2 an alternative power source.

Saint-Jacques, McClain and Oleg Kononenko of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos are scheduled to return to Earth in June.