Boeing Starliner capsule lands back on Earth without astronauts, ending a problematic test flight (video)
Starliner’s long odyssey in space is over.
The Boeing capsule named Calypso returned to Earth early this morning (September 7) and landed in the New Mexico desert at 12:01 a.m. EDT (4:01 a.m. GMT; 11:01 p.m. local time on September 6).
“Great landing by Calyspo!” NASA astronaut Suni Williams said on the agency’s webcast. “I don’t think it could have gone better.”
The landing had been long delayed, more than three months into an orbital mission originally scheduled to last about 10 days. And although Starliner launched with two NASA astronauts on board – Williams and Butch Wilmore – no one went home.
It shouldn’t have ended like this.
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A crucial test flight
The roots of the just-completed mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), go back a decade. In 2014, NASA awarded SpaceX and Boeing multibillion-dollar contracts to complete work on its astronaut taxis – the Crew Dragon and Starliner capsules.
The agency wanted one or both of these vehicles to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) starting in 2017, restoring the nation’s manned space flight capability – something the United States had lacked since the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011.
Related: NASA’s Space Shuttle Program in Pictures: A Tribute
None of the capsules achieved that ambitious goal. SpaceX’s first astronaut mission, a test flight to the ISS called Demo-2, launched in May 2020. Starliner’s crewed debut was CFT, which launched on June 5 atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket and sent Williams and Wilmore to the orbiting lab for a planned eight-day stay.
CFT’s launch was originally scheduled for last year, but was postponed due to problems with the parachute and the removal of large amounts of insulation tape from the capsule’s wiring system. (Analysis revealed that the tape was flammable and thus posed a safety risk.)
The mission has also had problems more recently. For example, a launch attempt scheduled for May 25 was canceled after team members noticed a small helium leak in the Starliner’s service module. After launch, more helium leaks occurred as the Starliner tracked the ISS in orbit. And, even more worrying, the capsule had propulsion problems: five of its 28 reaction control system (RCS) engines failed shortly after liftoff.
The engine problems prevented Starliner from docking with the ISS for the first time on June 6. The capsule was successful on its second attempt that day, and team members eventually got four of the five faulty engines running again. But the problem overshadowed the rest of the mission.
A difficult decision
NASA repeatedly extended CFT’s orbital stay to give mission team members more time to analyze and resolve the engine problems. This work included modeling studies and testing both in space (with Starliner) and on the ground (with a Starliner RCS engine at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico).
Ultimately, NASA concluded that Williams and Wilmore’s return trip in the Starliner posed an unacceptable safety risk.
“The decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station and bring Boeing’s Starliner home uncrewed is the result of our commitment to safety: our core value and our North Star,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement on Aug. 24, the day the agency announced the news.
Related: Boeing Starliner astronauts will return home on a SpaceX Dragon in 2025, NASA confirms
Williams and Wilmore will stay aboard the ISS until February, then fly home on a SpaceX Crew Dragon, the plane flying the company’s Crew-9 mission, which is scheduled to launch later this month. To make room for them, Crew-9 will launch with two astronauts instead of the usual four.
Starliner has since been packed for an unmanned return to Earth. Among other things, it brought home the “Boeing Blue” spacesuits that Williams and Wilmore wore on board the capsule. The astronauts no longer need them.
“The suits are not compatible,” said Steve Stich, director of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, during a press conference on Wednesday (Sept. 4). “So the Starliner suits would not work in Dragon and vice versa.”
Starliner undocked from the ISS as planned at 6:04 p.m. EDT (10:04 p.m. GMT) on Friday (Sept. 6) and performed a series of burns to prepare for the uncrewed landing, which occurred by parachute at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico shortly after midnight today.
It was the third landing for Starliner overall. The capsule also flew two unmanned test flights to the ISS, one in December 2019 and one in May 2022. Starliner was unable to reach the orbital laboratory on the first flight due to several mishaps. The second unmanned mission was a success, although Starliner experienced some engine problems on that flight as well. (It was a different set, not related to the RCS, but to Starliner’s orbital maneuvering and control system.)
A bleak future
Boeing and NASA had hoped that CFT would pave the way for certification of the Starliner, allowing the capsule to launch six-month astronaut missions to the ISS.
The first operational flight of its kind, Starliner-1, was planned for February 2025. But that launch has already been pushed back to August 2025 at the earliest. And it’s currently unclear whether Starliner will be certified by then – or what additional testing, if any, NASA will require before certification can occur.
“I think what we really need to do now is lay out the overall plan, which we haven’t had time to do,” Stich said at the September 4 press conference.
“We haven’t because the teams have been so focused on this flight and determining the overall strategy for the search and the overall amount of work we need to do,” he added. “And when we do that, we’ll have a better understanding of when we can certify the vehicle and when we can resume flights?”
Crew Dragon, meanwhile, was certified shortly after the successful completion of Demo-2 in 2020. The SpaceX vehicle is now preparing for its ninth operational astronaut flight to the ISS for NASA. (That would be, as the name suggests, Crew-9.)
SpaceX has also flown a handful of private crewed missions to the station, as well as the Inspiration4 astronaut flight to orbit, which did not rendezvous with the orbiting lab. The company is also preparing to launch Polaris Dawn, another free-flying commercial astronaut mission that will conduct the first private spacewalk.
