A.Astronaut Butch Wilmore can’t forget the time he landed in permafrost. It was 2015, and Wilmore was returning to Earth aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft after spending 167 days on the International Space Station (ISS). The landing was on solid ground in Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, but braking rockets under the parachuted Soyuz needed to cushion the impact just before it hit the ground. However, there was also an additional layer of ice covering the land in the cold Kazakh November.
“That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced coming down,” Wilmore says. “I wasn’t out of breath, but I was still shocked.”
Wilmore expects things to go smoother next week when he and his crewmate, astronaut Suni Williams, return to Earth after flying the first mission of Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft. The Starliner lifted off this morning from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 10:53 a.m. (EDT) for an eight-day visit to the ISS, carrying commander Wilmore and pilot Williams. This is only the sixth time in NASA history that it has launched a new crewed spacecraft, after Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, the shuttles and Dragon. It will also be the first time that an American spacecraft landing with a parachute will land on land instead of in the ocean, eliminating the need for rescue ships to go to the landing zone. To cushion the impact, the Starliner is equipped with inflatable airbags that Wilmore and Williams call “marshmallows.”
“We’re descending at 21 to 27 feet per second, and the airbags are pushing that down to about 9 to 15 feet per second,” Wilmore says. “Then we’ll let you know how things go.”
A new ship with a long history
There are many unknowns about Starliner. The troubled ship had been in development for a decade; even longer than the space shuttle, which was announced in January 1972 and did not fly until April 1981. NASA first tasked SpaceX and Boeing with the task of producing commercial crew vehicles that could fly into space in 2014. By transporting astronauts to and from the ISS, it freed the United States from its dependence on the Russians, who charge more than $90 million per seat to board their Soyuz. NASA awarded $4.2 billion to Boeing and $2.6 billion to SpaceX for this work, targeting 2017 as the year the ships will start flying. No company came close.
SpaceX didn’t send a crew to the ISS until 2020, and as for Boeing, the clock was still ticking until this week. An uncrewed test flight in 2019 that was only partially successful resulted in the ship reaching space but not docking with the ISS. It wouldn’t be until 2022 that the company launched a successful uncrewed test mission. The current much-delayed launch comes at a time when Boeing is facing serial troubles on the commercial aircraft side following two crashes on its 737 line, one in 2018 and the other in 2019, that killed 346 people; In January 2024, the door of a 737 Max jet blew off during flight; The 737 failed multiple Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspections following the incident; and two whistleblowers who challenged the company over production and safety issues died suddenly; one from a serious infection on May 2 and the other from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound in March. The company has no involvement in the deaths. All of this requires both NASA and Boeing’s space division to work hard to maintain focus on the launch of the Starliner, especially the imperative to bring Wilmore and Williams home safely.
“The first crewed flight of a new spacecraft is an absolutely critical milestone,” NASA deputy administrator Jim Free said at an April 25 press conference. “The lives of our crew members are at risk. We don’t take this lightly at all. “The most important thing we can do is protect these two individuals and our crew currently on the space station.”
When a reporter asked how important it was for Boeing to “make a profit” with the Starliner flight, Mark Nappi, vice president and manager of the Boeing Commercial Crew Program, reverted to safety.
“We have people flying in this vehicle,” he said. “We always take this very seriously… This is what we signed up to do and we will do it and we will be successful at it.”
Speaking to TIME remotely from pre-flight quarantine on May 1, in the days before a previously planned launch was canceled for technical reasons, the astronauts said they were confident in their own vehicle while also acknowledging that it, and Boeing as a whole, were doing the same. face the challenges.
“We’re very focused on Starliner,” Williams says. “That’s all we’re really focused on. I think it’s no secret to say that the spacecraft is a little late. We added some areas that we thought really needed improvement… we wanted to make sure they were completed, and the response was good.”
Wilmore adds: “I went to test pilot school in 1992 and [I’ve] I have been doing tests for a long time. Boeing is a highly visible company. When you take people and fly them through the atmosphere and then out of the atmosphere, it’s more visible, so you’re going to put more pressure on those things.
It’s impossible to know right now whether the spacecraft will garner better press than the company that built it now that it’s in the air. But Wilmore and Williams aside, the stakes couldn’t be higher for Boeing.
stumbling out the door
The mistake that doomed Starliner’s 2019 mission was embarrassing for both NASA and Boeing. The ship had problems with its mission clock once it reached space, meaning it didn’t know what its altitude was and burned too much fuel trying to navigate, preventing it from climbing into the station’s 250-mile orbit. In a press release, NASA described the orbit as “non-nominal”; It meant “useless” in space language. Starliner landed safely in New Mexico two days later, but a NASA study listed 80 “corrective actions” (software, hardware, testing protocols, peer reviews and more) that needed to be taken before Starliner was determined to be flight-worthy. .
In May 2022, an uncrewed Starliner completed its mission to the station. After two more years of crew training and spacecraft certification, not to mention delays caused by the simple task of scheduling multiple spacecraft (crewed Russian Soyuz, crewed SpaceX Dragon, and uncrewed cargo vehicles from Russia) competing for the station’s limited docking ports. Russia, SpaceX and Northrop Grumman—Starliner finally hits the runway.
But Boeing still has a lot to do before it can get anywhere near what SpaceX has accomplished in the decade since the two companies won commercial crew contracts. Between transporting cargo and astronauts, SpaceX has made 42 visits to the ISS. Although Boeing was never contracted for uncrewed cargo flights to the station, SpaceX’s proven ability to fly up and down reliably has made it a national and global leader in commercial launch services. At the April 25 press conference, Nappi didn’t even guarantee that Boeing would remain in the commercial crew game after the company’s six contracted flights to the station were completed by the end of the decade.
“We have plenty of time to think about what comes next,” he said. “And we will do this.”
So far, Williams and Wilmore aren’t thinking remotely. Their nominal mission will last a brief eight days on station, with much of that time spent checking the Starliner and ensuring it is fit to fly future crew for much longer stays. Simply reaching and docking with the station will serve to prove that the spacecraft’s guidance and navigation systems are working. But approving a new spacecraft is about much more than determining that it can get to its destination.
The two astronauts will conduct tests on Starliner’s solar panels, communications, onboard computers, power systems and more. They will also check the simple matter of how airtight the ship is once docked at the station. This is important not only to prevent air leaks, but also to determine whether the spacecraft can serve as a shelter in case of emergency, such as a sudden depressurization of the station, a fire, or a leak of toxic ammonia from the coolant. The system used in the American modules of the ISS.
“In these classic emergencies, our lifeboat is our spacecraft,” Williams says.
Some of the station’s other seven crew members will also assist, climbing aboard the Starliner with Williams and Wilmore and determining whether the ship can comfortably accommodate the four-person crew that will fly it on future missions. In return, Williams and Wilmore are willing to help with space station experiments and maintenance, especially if their missions are extended. Technical anomalies on the spacecraft or high winds at various landing points in the desert Southwest where the spacecraft may crash could delay the crew’s return by a month or more. Williams and Wilmore, who have both served long-term station rotations before, hope it’s short-term. Starliner is a reusable spacecraft and will be used on future missions if the vehicle they fly holds up well.
“We want to go and return as quickly as possible so they can turn our spacecraft back around and also take all the lessons learned and incorporate them into the next Starliner,” Williams says.
What’s next
Assuming this mission is successful, at least a few of the next Starliners are certain to fly. NASA hopes to keep Starliner in service beyond 2030. It’s not for nothing that the space agency chose two companies, rather than a single one, to build the spacecraft in low Earth orbit. This provides what NASA calls “unparalleled redundancy”; something that would prevent the country from being stranded if one of its launch providers had an accident or was out of service for any period of time; just like the USA got stuck on Earth after the shuttle Columbia. After the and Challenger disasters, the shuttles were retired in 2011.
As for the injured Boeing brand, the current mission will determine whether at least some recovery is possible. Both the company and NASA emphasize that Boeing is the main contractor of the station and that, with the construction of the Starliner, this is not something to be underestimated. At the press conference, NASA chief flight director Emily Nelson said the ISS “is the longest continuously operating spacecraft in human history.” So we’re excited to bring the two together.”
Meanwhile, Wilmore and Williams are excited to make a different kind of history. As the first crew to fly a new spacecraft, they earn a place in NASA skies alongside such giants as Alan Shepard, the first human to fly the Mercury spacecraft; Gus Grissom, first commander of the Gemini spacecraft; Wally Schirra, who piloted the inaugural Apollo; and John Young, commander of the first shuttle.
“It’s very humbling,” Wilmore says. “You pinch yourself because we never thought we’d be here. “We are grateful for this opportunity and so we are focused on mission, mission, mission.”
Write to: Jeffrey Kluger at jeffrey.kluger@time.com.