Boeing's uncrewed Starliner spacecraft touches down on Earth, capping months of drama in orbit

Source: NBC News

Sept. 6, 2024, 6:05 PM EDT / Updated Sept. 7, 2024, 2:05 AM EDT


After a summer of turmoil, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is finally home. The capsule undocked from the International Space Station without astronauts onboard on Friday at 6:04 p.m. ET, then spent roughly six hours flying back to Earth. Starliner successfully touched down at New Mexico’s White Sands Space Harbor at 12:01 a.m. ET.

NASA footage showed the capsule streaking across the night sky before two sets of parachutes opened to slow it down. Six landing airbags were also deployed underneath the spacecraft to cushion its landing.

For Boeing, the Starliner's successful return was likely bittersweet. Its smooth journey back suggests that the two NASA astronauts it carried to the space station could probably have flown home safely on the spacecraft. But problems with Starliner's thrusters and leaking helium, both detected soon after it launched, led the agency’s top officials to decide to call on SpaceX for the return flight instead.

“It’s important to remember this was a test mission,” Joel Montalbano, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for space operations, said at a news conference early Saturday after Starliner had landed.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/boeing-starliner-return-no-astronauts-rcna169336