Boeing Starliner leaves the ISS without an astronaut crew. Here’s how you can watch the landing on Earth tonight
Boeing’s first Starliner capsule to carry astronauts to the International Space Station departed the orbiting laboratory on Friday (Sept. 6), leaving its crew behind as it prepared for landing, which you can watch live online tonight.
The unmanned Starliner spacecraft undocked from the station at 6:04 p.m. EDT (10:04 p.m. GMT). Both spacecraft flew 260 miles over central China on Friday evening. It is scheduled to land on the desert floor of White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico at about 10 a.m. 12pm EDT (04:00 GMT) on Saturday, September 7. You can follow the landing live online, starting at 10:50 p.m. EDT (2:50 a.m. GMT)Courtesy of NASA. Check out our Boeing Starliner live updates for ongoing coverage.
“She’s on her way home. Congratulations to the undocking team,” NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, who launched on the Starliner with crewmate Butch Wilmore on June 5, radioed to mission control from inside the ISS as her spacecraft drifted away without them. NASA decided to return the Starliner home without a crew due to problems with its engines, although the capsule’s engines appeared to be working fine during undocking.
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Starliner’s Crew Flight Test (CFT) to the International Space Station (ISS)—the capsule’s first crewed spaceflight—launched on June 5 and docked with the orbital complex on June 6, although the first docking attempt was aborted. Starliner experienced helium leaks before launch, and during docking, five of its 28 reaction control system thrusters failed.
Related: Boeing’s first manned Starliner returns to Earth without astronauts on September 6
CFT was originally scheduled to last about 10 days, but NASA approved a mission extension that eventually stretched to about three months to allow for extensive ground and space testing of Starliner’s propulsion system before the agency cleared the spacecraft to land.
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NASA ultimately decided that it was too risky to send CFT’s astronauts Wilmore and Williams home on the Starliner, so the duo will fly home on a SpaceX Crew Dragon in February 2025, while the Starliner will return to Earth unmanned.
As Starliner Calypso pulled away from the ISS, it fired its engines in a series of 12 short maneuvers to avoid the station as planned. Over the next six hours, it will conduct a series of more engine tests and then perform a final deorbit maneuver at 11:17 p.m. EDT (3:17 a.m. GMT) for a landing at 12:00 a.m. EDT.
“It’s time to bring Calypso home. You guys can do this,” Williams radioed to mission control, referring to the name her crew had chosen for Starliner before they undocked. “We’re behind you, and you can do this. Bring her back to Earth.”
SpaceX and Boeing won multibillion-dollar contracts from NASA in 2014 to fly astronauts in place of the Space Shuttle, which was retired in 2011. At the time, it was expected that these commercial manned flights would begin in 2017. But due to technical and financial delays, SpaceX was not able to begin manned flights until 2020; Starliner waited four more years for CFT.
NASA, Boeing, Williams and Wilmore (both former U.S. Navy test pilots) have all stressed the delicate nature of complex aerospace development projects. Because everyone is often grappling with the unknown on a test mission like CFT, timelines are always subject to change. It’s unclear how Starliner’s recent issues will affect CFT certification, but NASA and Boeing will review the process in the coming months.
Starliner’s first unmanned test flight to the ISS in 2019, the same year as SpaceX’s, did not go according to plan; the Boeing capsule failed to reach the station due to technical glitches. The repeat mission required dozens of problems to be fixed; it was also postponed due to the COVID pandemic that broke out in early 2020.
Starliner’s second uncrewed test flight went mostly according to plan in 2022, including an ISS docking, although Starliner also experienced some engine problems. (How these relate to the CFT problems is still under investigation, but officials say it appears to have other causes.) CFT was scheduled to launch in 2023, but the mission was postponed after problems were discovered with parachute loading and cables wrapped in flammable tape.
CFT’s first launch attempt on May 6, 2024, was postponed after a valve problem was discovered on Starliner’s rocket, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V. After the missile defense, officials discovered a small helium leak in one of Starliner’s engines.
Although the leak did not pose an immediate launch threat, it was investigated for safety reasons. Both NASA and Boeing discovered a weakness in the design: if enough engines failed, one of the reentry modes would be affected. NASA certified a new entry mode after running ground simulations with the CFT crew.
A second launch attempt on June 1 was aborted due to a problem with ground equipment, but Starliner then flew into space on its third attempt on June 5.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 6:53 p.m. ET to reflect the successful undocking of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft from the ISS and to include comments from the astronauts.
