Prior to his selection as one of Canada's astronauts, Hansen was a Royal Canadian Air Force captain, piloting the CF-18 fighter jet at CFB Cold Lake, Alberta.

Hansen was born on January 27, 1976, in London, Ontario, and raised on a farm near Ailsa Craig, until moving to Ingersoll for his high school education.

Hansen later completed a Master of Science degree in physics at the Royal Military College in 2000, with a research focus on wide field of view satellite tracking.

[1] In 2013, Hansen served as cavenaut into the ESA CAVES training in Sardinia, alongside Satoshi Furukawa, Michael Barratt, Jack Fisher, Aleksei Ovchinin and Paolo Nespoli.

[2] On June 10, 2014, NASA announced that Hansen would serve as an aquanaut aboard the Aquarius underwater laboratory during the NEEMO 19 undersea exploration mission, which began on September 7, 2014, and lasted seven days.