by The Starliner has landed.
Boeing’s troubled spacecraft has finally come home, but the two NASA astronauts who traveled there to the International Space Station in June are still in orbit.
Because of problems with Starliner’s propulsion system during its approach to the space station in June, NASA officials decided not to put astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore on Starliner for the return trip. They will spend an additional five months on the space station as part of the crew before returning to Earth around February in a spacecraft built and managed by SpaceX.
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For the most part, the retraction and atmospheric reentry of the Starliner proceeded smoothly. So the capsule landed by parachute at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday (10:01 a.m. local time on Friday). That backed up earlier assurances from Boeing officials that the company’s vehicle was safe for the astronauts.
“It would have been a safe, successful landing with the crew on board, if we had Butch and Suni on board,” said Steve Stich, manager of the commercial crew program at NASA, during a news conference early Saturday morning after the landing. .
But the difficulties during the mission and the extended stay in orbit for the two astronauts have embarrassed Boeing, and there may be uncertainty about how much the company is willing to continue investing in the Starliner program.
During the news conference, Stich referred to the next Starliner flight as Starliner-1 – the designation of the first operational mission after NASA confirmed that the vehicle was ready to carry crews of four to and from the space station.
He talked about changes that Boeing’s engineering teams have made to come up with the changes needed before the next Starliner flight, especially how to avoid overheating the thrushes.
“That work has already begun, and that’s really the path to Starliner-1,” Stich said. He added that engineers need to examine the data collected during the test flight before deciding on a plan and timeline.
NASA initially announced that two high-level Boeing space officials would participate in a news conference on Saturday, but then did not. “They deferred to NASA to represent the mission,” said Joel Montalbano, associate deputy administrator for NASA’s space operations mission directorate.
Boeing issued a statement citing Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of the Starliner.
“I want to acknowledge the work done by the Starliner crews to ensure a successful and safe recovery, extraction, re-entry and landing,” he said. “We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program.”
Montalbano said Boeing played a key role in the International Space Station, the commercial crew program with Starliner and in manufacturing the core stage of the new Space Launch System. “Their work is critical to our success, and we fully expect a call to continue all three of those programs,” he said.
Before the unlock, Williams, who gave this vehicle the name Calypso several years ago, thanked the mission control team.
“It’s time to bring Calypso home,” she said. “We have your back and you have this. Bring her back to Earth. Good luck.”
Afterwards, Chloe Mehring, the flight director, thanked the astronauts, who have spent years preparing for this flight. “We remember every setback and every revelation with you,” Mehring said. “The crews on the ground have worked countless hours over the past few weeks, months, and, for a group of us, years to bring Calypso back, and we’re ready for that today.”
Starliner began its journey back to Earth by retracting hooks that held it tightly to the space station. Springs then pushed the spaceship away from the docking port. At that moment, it was about 260 miles above central China.
A series of thruster shots smoothly sent Starliner up and over the space station. At higher altitudes, it was moving more slowly than the space station and the distance between them grew rapidly.
That was an exciting start at the end of the mission, launched in June, on a test flight that was the first time Starliner had carried humans into orbit. The flight was planned as a final shakedown before NASA certified the spacecraft for once-a-year missions taking astronauts to and from the space station.
The vehicle’s propulsion system experienced problems on its approach to the space station, including several bulky thrusters and a leak of helium, a gas used to propel a propellant into an unladen orbit. Although Starliner was able to dock successfully, the cause of the problems is still not fully understood, and NASA officials decided that it would be safer for Starliner to return without anyone on board.
As it moved into position to re-enter the atmosphere, Starliner test fired 12 thrusters on the crew capsule portion of the spacecraft. One of them didn’t work, but that’s not a problem, because there are two redundant systems of six thrusters each.
“This one, for some reason, never took off,” Stich said.
However, it was critical that the redundant thruster functioned in order for Starliner to successfully survive the searing passage through the atmosphere.
The flight controllers broke 10 of the thrusters on the service module – the cylindrical part below the crew compartment – and all of them worked as expected.
At 11:17 pm, the big thrusters on Starliner managed to release Starliner from orbit for almost a minute. Then he threw out his service module — the cylindrical component below the crew compartment that housed the troublesome thrusters.
The crew capsule re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the central Pacific Ocean, traveling to the northeast, crossing northwestern Mexico on the way to touch down in the Chihuahuan Desert.
People in New Mexico, Arizona and northern Mexico shared videos on the X social network showing the heated spacecraft streaking through the night skies. Soon after, Starliner descended under three parachutes, with its final impact on the desert floor cushioned by airbags at the bottom of the capsule.
The two Starliner astronauts left behind by the spacecraft will become full 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 more astronauts, NASA’s Nick Hague and Russia’s Aleksandr Gorbunov, are scheduled to launch to the space station in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. They will also serve as part of Expedition 72.
In order for Williams and Wilmore to have seats on the return trip to Earth next year, two other NASA astronauts scheduled to serve on Expedition 72 – Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson – were bumped from the mission, known as Crew- 9.
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