Starliner returns to Earth empty – leaving two astronauts stranded

Boeing’s Starliner has returned to Earth empty after leaving two astronauts who rode the spaceship up to the International Space Station stranded until next year.

The space capsule touched down at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico today at approximately 4am GMT, around six hours after departing the ISS on Friday. 

It was due to return to earth much earlier, having launched in June for what was meant to be a roughly weeklong test mission with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board. 

But unexpected thruster malfunctions and helium leaks on its way up derailed those plans and NASA ultimately decided it was safer to bring the pair back on a spacecraft from rival Elon Musk‘s SpaceX. 

The next scheduled SpaceX flight is not until February next year, meaning Wilmore and Williams will be stranded in space for another six months. 

Boeing and NASA teams working around NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test Starliner spacecraft after it landed at White Sands, New Mexico, on Saturday

Boeing’s Starliner lands at the landing site at White Sands Space Harbor in White Sands, New Mexico

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were initially planned to depart on the Starliner, but issues with the capsule’s thrusters have delayed their return until at least February 2025

Ground teams reported hearing sonic booms as it streaked red hot across the night sky, having endured temperatures of 3,000F (1,650C) during atmospheric reentry.

A smooth, uneventful ride was seen as critical not only for salvaging some pride but also for Boeing’s prospects of achieving certification in the future.

The century-old aerospace giant had carried out extensive ground testing aimed at replicating the technical issues the spaceship had experienced on its ascent and devised plans to prevent more problems.

With its reputation already battered by safety concerns affecting its passenger jets, Boeing made assurances in public and in private that it could be trusted to bring the astronauts home – an assessment not shared by NASA.

‘Boeing believed in the model that they had created that tried to predict the thruster degradation for the rest of the flight,’ Steve Stich, program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, told reporters this week.

But ‘the NASA team, due to the uncertainty in the modeling, could not get comfortable with that,’ he added, characterizing the mood during meetings as ‘tense.’

Starliner capsule fires its thrusters as it pulls away from the International Space Station on Friday, September 6

The gumdrop-shaped capsule touched down softly at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, its descent slowed by parachutes and cushioned by airbags

Shortly after undocking, Starliner executed a powerful ‘breakout burn’ to swiftly clear it from the station and prevent any risk of collision – a maneuver that would have been unnecessary if crew were aboard to take manual control if needed.

Following that, mission teams conducted thorough checks of its thrusters in preparation for the critical ‘deorbit burn,’ required to guide the capsule onto its reentry path around 40 minutes before landing.

While expectations were high that Starliner would stick the landing, as it had in two previous uncrewed tests, NASA will now carefully review all aspects of the mission’s performance before deciding on the next steps.

NASA awarded Boeing and SpaceX multibillion-dollar contracts over a decade ago to develop spacecraft to taxi astronauts to and from the ISS, after the end of the Space Shuttle program left the US space agency reliant on Russian rockets.

Although initially considered the underdog, Elon Musk’s SpaceX surged ahead of mighty Boeing, successfully flying dozens of astronauts since 2020.

The Starliner program, meanwhile, has faced numerous setbacks.

The space capsule touched down at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico today at approximately 4am GMT, around six hours after departing the ISS on Friday

Boeing and NASA teams working around NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test Starliner spacecraft after it landed uncrewed at White Sands, New Mexico

A full timeline of Boeing’s Starliner program, from the singing of their massive contact to the incident that left two astronauts stranded aboard the ISS 

In 2019, during its first uncrewed test flight, a software glitch prevented the capsule from rendezvousing with the ISS. A second software issue, which could have caused a catastrophic collision between its modules, was caught and fixed just in time.

In 2021, with the rocket poised on the launchpad for another attempt, blocked valves forced yet another postponement.

The capsule finally reached the ISS in May 2022 on a non-crewed flight, but further issues, including weak parachutes and flammable tape in the cabin that needed removal, delayed the crewed test.

For the current mission, astronauts Wilmore and Williams had been strapped into their seats and ready to fly twice before last-minute ‘scrubs’ due to technical glitches sent them back to their quarters.