Boeing’s Starliner Safely Returns to Earth With No Astronauts Aboard
The New York Times
Two NASA crew remain on the International Space Station after the troubled vehicle they rode undocked and then landed in the New Mexico desert.
The Starliner has landed.
Boeing’s troubled spacecraft has finally come home, but the two NASA astronauts who traveled in it to the International Space Station in June remain in orbit.
Out of an abundance of caution, NASA officials decided not to put the astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, on Starliner for the return trip. They will spend an additional five months on the space station as part of the crew before coming back to Earth around February.
The undocking, re-entry and landing of Starliner proceeded smoothly, supporting the contention of Boeing officials that the vehicle was safe for the astronauts. None of the worries about Starliner’s thrusters turned out to affect the return.
Descending under three parachutes, the capsule touched down at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday (10:01 p.m. Friday in New Mexico). Airbags at the bottom of the capsule cushioned the impact.
After several orbits of the planet, at 11:17 p.m., the large thrusters on Starliner fired for almost a minute to drop Starliner out of orbit. It then discarded its service module — the cylindrical component below the crew capsule that contained the troublesome thrusters.
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