Boeing Starliner returns to Earth, but without astronauts
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has successfully returned to Earth, but the astronauts it was supposed to transport are still aboard the International Space Station.
After undocking from the ISS, the spacecraft operated autonomously on its journey home. Due to technical issues encountered after its launch with NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the craft was deemed too risky for the astronauts’ return. They will now come back in a SpaceX Crew Dragon, extending their stay on the ISS from eight days to eight months.
Following Starliner’s return, a NASA spokesperson expressed satisfaction with the successful landing but noted a wish that things could have gone according to the original plan. The return flight lasted six hours, with parachutes deployed to slow the capsule’s descent as it landed at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico on Saturday at 23:01 local time (05:01 GMT).
NASA earlier reported that Butch and Suni were in good spirits and maintaining regular contact with their families. Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, remarked on the astronauts’ dedication to their work and their understanding of the importance of safely returning the vehicle.
This mission marked the first test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft with astronauts on board.
But it was plagued with problems soon after it blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on 5 June.
The capsule experienced leaks of helium, which pushed fuel into the propulsion system, and several of its thrusters did not work properly.
Engineers at Boeing and Nasa spent months trying to understand these technical issues, but in late August the US space agency decided that Starliner was not safe enough to bring the astronauts home.
In a news briefing following the landing, Steve Stich said: “From a human perspective, all of us feel happy about the successful landing, but then there’s a piece of us – all of us – that wish it would have been the way we had planned it.
“We had planned to have the mission land with Butch and Suni on board.”
He added there was “clearly work to do”, and that it would take “a little time” to determine what will come next.
The briefing panel consisted only of Nasa officials. Missing, were two Boeing representatives who were supposed to be present.
When quizzed on the absence, Nasa official Joel Montalbano said Boeing decided to “defer to Nasa” to represent the mission.
Instead, Boeing released a statement “to recognize the work the Starliner teams did to ensure a successful and safe undocking, deorbit, re-entry and landing”.
It said Boeing will “review the data and determine the next steps” forward for the program.
Mr Stich previously admitted there was “tension in the room” between Boeing and Nasa while the decision not to bring the astronauts home on Starliner was being made, with Boeing arguing that their spacecraft could safely return with the pair on board.
“The NASA team, due to the uncertainty and the modeling, could not get comfortable with that,” he said.
The plan to use rival company SpaceX has brought with it a significant delay to the astronauts’ return.
The extra time is to allow SpaceX to launch its next vehicle, with lift-off scheduled for the end of September.
It was supposed to have four astronauts on board, but instead, it will travel with two. This leaves room for Butch and Suni to join them in the vehicle to return to Earth at the end of its planned stay next February.
She said the pair were undertaking the exercise programs needed to stay healthy in the weightless environment.
And she added that they now had all of the gear they needed for their unplanned eight-month stay.
“When we first sent them up, they were borrowing a lot of our generic clothing that we have on board, and we have now switched some of those things out,” she said.
She explained that a resupply mission in July had delivered “specific crew preference items” that the pair had requested.
“So they actually have all of the standard expedition gear at this point that any other crew member would be able to select. And we’ve got another cargo vehicle coming up, so we’ll send up anything else that they need for the back-end half of their mission on that flight.”
