Boeing’s Starliner Lands Safely After Troubled Test Flight
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft successfully landed in New Mexico on Friday night, concluding a three-month test mission troubled by technical issues. These problems kept NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard the International Space Station (ISS) longer than planned. Initially, the astronauts were scheduled to return after eight days. However, they will now remain in space until February 2025 due to safety concerns with Starliner’s thrusters.
NASA Crew Remains on the ISS
Although Starliner autonomously undocked from the ISS on Friday at 6:04 p.m. ET, Wilmore and Williams stayed behind on the station. They had flown the spacecraft to the ISS in June, marking the first manned Starliner mission. After undocking, Starliner began its six-hour journey back to Earth using maneuvering thrusters, which NASA had recently deemed too risky for human use.
Despite this, the spacecraft completed its descent without any issues. Starliner reentered Earth’s atmosphere at around 11 p.m. ET, travelling at approximately 17,000 miles per hour (27,400 km/h). It deployed parachutes and airbags before successfully landing at the White Sands Space Harbor.
Extended Stay for Astronauts
Wilmore and Williams, along with seven other astronauts aboard the ISS, will continue their scientific research until they return in February 2025. They will travel back on a SpaceX vehicle. What was intended to be a brief mission has stretched into an eight-month stay due to the thruster issues that occurred during their approach to the ISS in June.
During that approach, five of Starliner’s 28 thrusters failed, prompting a thorough investigation by Boeing and NASA. These issues, along with helium leaks in the propulsion system, cost Boeing $125 million in additional expenses. Since 2016, Boeing’s cost overruns for the Starliner program have now reached $1.6 billion.
Boeing’s Ongoing Challenges
Boeing’s difficulties with the Starliner program date back to 2019 when an uncrewed test flight to the ISS failed. A successful redo mission followed in 2022, but some thrusters malfunctioned during that trip as well. The most recent thruster failures have cast doubt on the spacecraft’s future, raising questions about Boeing’s role in space exploration. Once a dominant player, Boeing now faces stiff competition from SpaceX, which has offered more cost-effective solutions for NASA and other clients.
After Starliner’s landing, Boeing will recover the capsule to continue investigating the thruster issues. The spacecraft’s service module, which housed the faulty thrusters, detached and burned up in Earth’s atmosphere, so further tests will be conducted on the ground to diagnose the problems.