Starliner has landed.
Boeing’s troubled spacecraft has finally returned home, but two NASA astronauts who headed to the International Space Station in June are still in orbit.
After problems with the Starliner’s propulsion system during its approach to the space station in June, NASA officials decided not to send astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore on the Starliner for the return trip. They will spend another five months on the space station as part of the crew before returning to Earth in a spacecraft built and operated by SpaceX around February.
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For the most part, Starliner’s relocation and re-entry went smoothly, with the capsule parachuting into White Sands Spaceport in New Mexico at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday (10:01 p.m. local time on Friday), supporting Boeing officials’ previous claims that the company’s vehicle was safe for astronauts.
“If Butch and Suni had been with us, the landing would have been safe and successful because the crew was on board,” Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said at a press conference Saturday morning after the landing.
But the challenges of the mission and the long stay of two astronauts in orbit have left Boeing in a difficult position, and there may be uncertainty about how much the company will continue to invest in the Starliner program.
Stich referred to the next Starliner flight at the press conference as Starliner-1, which will be the first operational mission after NASA confirmed that the vehicle is ready to carry a crew of four to and from the space station.
He talked about the engineering teams Boeing has formed to make the changes needed before the next Starliner flight, particularly changes to how to prevent the thrusters from overheating.
“That work has already begun, and this is really the path to Starliner-1,” Stich said. He also said engineers need to review data collected during the test flight before deciding on a plan and timeline.
NASA initially announced that two senior Boeing space officials would attend Saturday’s press conference, but they later dropped out. “They approached NASA to represent the mission,” said Joel Montalbano, associate administrator of NASA’s space operations mission directorate.
Boeing released a statement quoting Starliner vice president and program manager Mark Nappi.
“I want to recognize the work done by the Starliner teams to ensure a successful and safe separation, deorbit, reentry and landing,” he said. “We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program.”
Boeing has played a key role in building the International Space Station, the commercial crew program with Starliner and the core stage of the new Space Launch System, Montalbano said. “Their work is critical to our success, and we look forward to continuing on all three of these programs,” he said.
Williams, who named the vehicle Calypso a few years ago, thanked the mission control team before leaving.
“It’s time to bring Calypso home,” he said. “We’re behind you and you can do it. Bring her back to Earth. Good luck.”
Flight director Chloe Mehring thanked the astronauts who spent years preparing for this flight. “We remember every mishap and every revelation that came with you,” Mehring said. “The teams on the ground have worked countless hours over the last few weeks, months and years as a group to bring Calypso back, and today we are ready for it.”
Starliner began its journey back to Earth by retracting the hooks that secured it to the space station. The spacecraft’s springs then pushed it away from the docking port. At that moment, it was about 260 miles above central China.
A series of thruster fires slowly pushed the Starliner upward and toward the space station. At a higher altitude, it was moving slower than the space station, and the distance between them was rapidly increasing.
It wasn’t an eventful start to the mission, which launched in June and was the first test flight to carry humans into orbit for the Starliner. The flight was intended as a final test before NASA approved the spacecraft for annual missions to take astronauts to and from the space station.
The vehicle’s propulsion system experienced problems as it approached the space station, including several unstable thrusters and a leak of helium, a gas used to propel the thrusters in the weightlessness of orbit. Although Starliner was able to dock successfully, the cause of the problems is still not fully understood, and NASA officials decided it would be safer for Starliner to return with no one on board.
While in position for re-entry, Starliner conducted test firings of 12 thrusters in the spacecraft’s crew capsule section. One failed, but that’s not a problem because there are two redundant systems of six thrusters each.
“This one never caught fire for some reason,” Stich said.
However, it was vital that the backup booster function so that the Starliner could successfully survive the atmospheric burnout.
Flight controllers also fired the 10 thrusters in the service module, the cylindrical section beneath the crew capsule, and all of them worked as expected.
At 23:17, the big thrusters on Starliner fired for almost a minute to lift Starliner out of orbit. It then jettisoned the service module, the cylindrical component located underneath the crew capsule that housed the problematic thrusters.
The crew capsule re-entered Earth’s atmosphere over the central Pacific, heading northeast and passing through northwestern Mexico, landing in the Chihuahuan Desert.
People in New Mexico, Arizona and northern Mexico shared videos on the social network X showing the warming spacecraft hurtling through the night sky. Shortly after, Starliner descended on three parachutes, its final impact with the desert floor cushioned by airbags under the capsule.
The two Starliner astronauts left behind by the spacecraft will become full-fledged members of the space station crew. NASA calls each rotation of crew members an “expedition,” and Williams and Wilmore will now be part of Expedition 72.
Later this month, two astronauts, Nick Hague from NASA and Aleksandr Gorbunov from Russia, are scheduled to launch to the space station in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. They will also serve as part of Expedition 72.
Two other NASA astronauts scheduled to serve on Expedition 72 — Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson — were removed from the mission, known as Crew-9, so Williams and Wilmore could take part in next year’s return trip to Earth.
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