Boeing Starliner spacecraft begins return journey without astronauts

Wilmore and Williams were on hand to assist with the Starliner’s departure from the space station.

“We’re behind you, and you can do this,” Williams radioed to mission controllers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston before the capsule was undocked. “Bring it back to Earth. Good luck.”

The Starliner’s return trip is being watched with great interest as it marks the end of a dramatic few months for Boeing and NASA. The test flight was designed to demonstrate that the spacecraft could reliably carry astronauts to low Earth orbit and back again, giving NASA approval for Boeing to fly to the space station on a regular basis.

Instead, the engine problems became the latest major setback for Boeing’s Starliner program, which was already more than $1.5 billion over budget and years behind schedule before launch. An unmanned test flight that NASA required Boeing to conduct before its spacecraft could carry astronauts also failed the first time, and the company had to repeat it in 2022.

NASA officials said earlier this week that the space agency is working with Boeing on modifications to the Starliner’s engines. Further analysis will be conducted once the vehicle returns and engineers have had a chance to evaluate its performance.

To account for possible engine malfunctions when Starliner begins its journey home, flight controllers have modified the capsule’s normal undocking process. After undocking from the space station, Starliner will fly autonomously up and away from the orbiting outer station to protect the space station in case something goes wrong.

A few hours later, the Starliner’s engines will fire a “deorbit burn” to send it plunging through Earth’s atmosphere. As it approaches its landing site in New Mexico, parachutes will deploy to slow the capsule and airbags will deploy beneath the spacecraft to cushion the landing.

Boeing developed its Starliner spacecraft as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, an initiative launched in 2011 to promote privately built spacecraft to fill the gap left by NASA’s retired space shuttles. Rival company SpaceX developed its Crew Dragon spacecraft as part of the same program and has been conducting routine flights to and from the space station since 2020.