On July 3, 2024, the Boeing spacecraft Starliner can be seen from the window of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft “Endeavour” docking with the International Space Station during a manned flight test.
NASA
boeing companyStarliner detached from the International Space Station on Friday, months later than scheduled and carrying two astronauts into orbit in early June.
Instead, NASA test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will remain on the International Space Station for the rest of the year and will return to Earth aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft in February.
It left the space station at 6:04 p.m. ET on Friday. The capsule is expected to take about six hours to return to Earth at the landing zone at White Sands Spaceport in New Mexico.
this Undocking process To protect the International Space Station and because astronauts won’t have manual controls on board if necessary, it will work slightly differently than crew members, NASA officials said Wednesday.
“We’ve got your back, you’ve got this,” Williams told mission controllers Friday before undocking at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “Get her back to Earth. Good luck to you.”
The return of Boeing’s Starliner capsule “Calypso” concludes a test flight that ended up taking much longer than NASA originally predicted and didn’t go as planned. The agency has repeatedly delayed the spacecraft’s return, citing a desire to collect more data about its problematic propulsion system.
Initially expected to stay in space for about nine days, Starliner later spent about three months at the International Space Station while Boeing investigated problems with the capsule’s thrusters. Boeing officials insisted at a press conference that Starliner can fly home safely in the event of an emergency, even if astronauts’ return is repeatedly delayed.
But NASA officials finally decided in late August that the agency would send Starliner back empty, saying it wanted to “further understand the root cause of the spacecraft problem.”
The Starliner crew flight test was supposed to be the final step for Boeing and a key addition for NASA. The agency wants two competing companies – Boeing and Elon Musk’s SpaceX – to alternate missions to the International Space Station.
Instead, the test flight set back Boeing’s progress on NASA’s commercial crew program and has absorbed more than $1.5 billion in losses, potentially threatening the company’s future participation in the program.
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