Boeing Starliner returns to Earth as NASA reports new problems

After years of delays, the Starliner launched in June for what was supposed to be a test mission of about a week — a final touch-down before it could be certified for crew rotation to and from the orbiting lab.

But unexpected thruster failures and helium leaks en route to the ISS derailed those plans, and NASA ultimately decided it was safer to bring back crewmates Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on a rival SpaceX Crew Dragon – although they will have to wait until February 2025.

The gumball-shaped Boeing capsule landed softly at New Mexico’s White Sands Spaceport at 04:01 GMT on Saturday, its descent slowed by parachutes and cushioned by airbags, leaving the ISS about six hours early.

As it glowed red in the night sky, ground crews reported hearing loud booms. The spacecraft endured temperatures of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,650 degrees Celsius) during atmospheric reentry.

NASA praised Boeing during a press conference after the flight, in which company representatives were conspicuously absent.

“It was a direct landing,” said Steve Stich, program manager for NASA’s commercial crew program. “In particular, the entrance was almost flawless.”

However, he admitted that some new problems had arisen, including the failure of a new thruster and the temporary loss of the guidance system.

He added that it was too early to discuss whether the next Starliner flight, scheduled for August next year, would be crewed, stressing instead that NASA needed time to analyze the data they had collected and to assess what changes are needed in both the design of the craft and the way it is flown.

Before the return leg, Boeing conducted extensive ground tests to resolve technical problems encountered during the Starliner’s ascent, then promised — both publicly and behind closed doors — that it would be able to bring the astronauts home safe. In the end, NASA disagreed.

Asked if he supported that decision, NASA’s Stich said, “It’s always hard to have hindsight. We made the decision to have an unmanned flight based on what we knew at the time and based on our knowledge of the thrusters and based on the designs that we had.”

History of failures

Even without a crew on board, the stakes were high for Boeing, a century-old aerospace giant.

With its reputation already tarnished by safety concerns surrounding its commercial jets, its long-term prospects for manned space missions hung in the balance.

Shortly after defuse, the Starliner performed a powerful “flare burn” to quickly remove it from the station and prevent any risk of collision – a maneuver that would have been unnecessary if the crew had been on board to take over manual control , if necessary.

The mission teams then performed thorough checks on the thrusters required for the critical “orbit burn” that guided the capsule on its reentry path about 40 minutes before touchdown.

Although the Starliner was expected to land, as it did in two previous unmanned tests, Boeing’s program continues to languish behind schedule.

In 2014, NASA awarded both Boeing and SpaceX multibillion-dollar contracts to develop spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS after the end of the space shuttle program left the US space agency dependent on Russian rockets .

Although initially considered the underdog, Elon Musk’s SpaceX jumped ahead of Boeing and has successfully flown dozens of astronauts since 2020.

Meanwhile, the Starliner program has faced numerous setbacks — from a software bug that prevented the capsule from rendezvousing with the ISS during its first uncrewed test flight in 2019, to the discovery of flammable tape in the cabin after the second test in 2022, until the current troubles.

With the ISS scheduled to be decommissioned in 2030, the longer the Starliner takes to become fully operational, the less time it will have to prove its worth.

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