It’s been a long time coming, but Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is finally returning to Earth — but without its two astronauts.
The capsule is scheduled to depart the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, leaving behind test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, and land at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico early Saturday morning.
This isn’t the trip Boeing or NASA had envisioned for the first crewed test flight of the capsule. Launched on June 5 with astronauts Williams and Wilmore, the mission was supposed to last eight days with the astronauts spending roughly seven days on the International Space Station.
Instead, the astronauts will spend eight months on the ISS as part of the crew, returning on a SpaceX Crew Dragon in February due to issues with Starliner. The problems with the spacecraft started before it even lifted off, with two helium leaks detected by ground crews after a launch attempt was scrubbed. However, NASA and Boeing decided to launch despite not understanding what was causing the leaks.
NASA says astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams may not be able to return from space until 2025 after a number of issues were detected on the Boeing Starliner capsule. Andrew Chang explains why getting them home is becoming increasingly complicated.
Once in orbit, they discovered more leaks. Then, during the docking procedure with the ISS, some thrusters abruptly shut down. After a slight delay, the crew arrived safely.
In the weeks following Starliner’s arrival at the space station, NASA held several press teleconferences insisting that the Starliner crew was safe and would return on the capsule. However, they announced on Aug. 24 that the crew would remain on the ISS until February, returning on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. Starliner would return to Earth uncrewed.
And this is yet another issue with the beleagured spacecraft. Its original uncrewed test mission in 2019 encountered troubles and was unable to dock with the ISS. A second uncrewed test mission faced thruster issues as well, however, it successfully docked and was considered a successful mission.
‘Never really stuck or stranded’
During a press conference Wednesday, NASA announced that the Starliner hatch would close Thursday around 1:30 p.m. ET, and would undock from the ISS on Friday at 6:04 p.m. ET. It is scheduled to land at White Sands at 12:04 a.m. ET Saturday morning.
Should the weather be unfavourable, or any issues arise, there are several back-up days occurring four days apart.
“I’m personally looking very forward to getting Starliner back,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said in a press conference Wednesday afternoon. “We’ve learned a lot on this test flight, and we’ll continue to learn more, I’m sure, during the undock and deorbit phase.”
Over the past two months, NASA has insisted that the astronauts are not stuck or stranded in space, saying that Starliner was safe enough to use in an emergency and that they had some means of returning and, despite Starliner returning uncrewed, the messaging is still the same.
“In my view, they were never really stuck or stranded. They always had a way to depart the space station,” Stich said. “To me, when someone’s stranded, there’s a location where they cannot leave. They had Starliner as the vehicle that they could depart from for a period of time. Now, Crew 8 is their emergency vehicle, and when Crew 9 gets there, that will be their vehicle.”
However, he later acknowledged that the Boeing spacesuits would be riding home on Starliner, as the suits are not compatible with those of SpaceX, and only one SpaceX spacesuit was available that only fit Williams. A spacesuit will be sent up for Wilmore on the next SpaceX resupply mission.
In the meantime, the astronauts are working hard as part of the Expedition 71/72 ISS crew, doing more than 40 experiments and more than 100 hours of work, according to Dana Weigel, manager of NASA’s ISS.
“On the flight operations side, we talk with Butch and Suni and all of the crew all of the time, and their mission focus is admirable,” said Anthony Vareha, flight director of the ISS, during the press conference. “They’re not just passengers on this vehicle; they’re part of the team. They were asking good questions and providing excellent context as we were trying to figure things out with Starliner.”
Though the astronauts are not returning, NASA and Boeing are both hoping for a successful landing in order to investigate the issues that arose during this test flight.
