After 12 weeks “stuck” on the International Space Station (ISS), Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is finally scheduled to return home on September 6, but this time it will not carry two astronauts who were previously sent into space.
According to a statement from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on August 29, the troubled spacecraft will detach from the ISS around 6 PM and will take approximately 6 hours to return, with an expected landing around midnight at the White Sands Spaceport in New Mexico.
The two astronauts who arrived at the ISS aboard the Starliner on June 5, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, will remain in the laboratory on the ISS.
On August 24, NASA announced that experts had discovered issues related to gas leaks and the propulsion system of the Starliner, leading the agency to determine that the spacecraft was not safe enough to complete the mission back to Earth with a crew on board.
Starliner spacecraft.
“The uncrewed Starliner spacecraft will carry out a fully automated return using flight controllers at the Starliner Mission Control Center in Houston and the Boeing Mission Control Center in Florida. Ground operations teams can remotely control the spacecraft if necessary through the necessary maneuvers for safe separation and landing via parachute in the Southwestern United States,” the NASA statement noted.
The success of Starliner’s return to Earth will play a crucial role for the future of Boeing’s entire spacecraft development program.
If Starliner encounters issues or NASA decides not to certify the spacecraft as safe for crewed flights to orbit, it will be another blow to Boeing’s already tarnished reputation.
Repeated test flights could cost Boeing millions of dollars, in addition to the approximately $1.5 billion loss the company has already incurred while implementing the Starliner program.
“We all really want to complete the crewed Boeing Starliner test flight, and we are all disappointed that we cannot do so,” Ken Bowersox, NASA’s associate administrator for the Human Spaceflight Program, said last week.
Even if the uncrewed return flight of the Starliner goes smoothly, NASA still faces a significant decision on whether to grant flight certification to this spacecraft, as it has not completed its mission as intended.
Throughout the weeks that ground engineers have been working to understand the propulsion system issues and leaks affecting Starliner, Boeing has maintained that they believe the vehicle will be safe to bring astronauts Williams and Wilmore back home.
In a statement on August 24, Boeing emphasized that the top priority is the safety of the crew and the spacecraft.
It is expected that astronauts Williams and Wilmore will return home on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft in February next year. The Crew Dragon spacecraft has been certified by NASA to conduct astronaut missions for the past four years and has completed approximately a dozen crewed flights to orbit.
