In July 1973, Creighton commenced a four-year assignment with VF-2 and became a member of the first F-14 operational squadron, completing two deployments aboard USS Enterprise to the Western Pacific.

He returned to the United States in July 1977 and was assigned to the Naval Air Test Center's Strike Directorate as operations officer and F-14 program manager.

During the ensuing two years, Creighton participated in all the key decisions following the Challenger disaster helping to shape the plan for resuming safe crewed space flight.

In March 1989 he was assigned to command STS-36 but continued to serve as Head of the Mission Support Branch in the Astronaut Office until commencing full-time training for his upcoming flight.

Following his second flight, Creighton headed up the Operations Development Branch within the Astronaut Office for one year prior to resuming full-time training for his next command.

STS-51-G Discovery (June 17–24, 1985) was a 7-day mission during which the crew deployed communications satellites for Mexico (Morelos), the Arab League (Arabsat), and the United States (AT&T Telstar).

They used the Remote Manipulator System (RMS) to deploy and later retrieve the SPARTAN satellite which performed 17 hours of X-ray astronomy experiments while separated from the Space Shuttle.