The nine-day-turned-to-three-month test mission of Boeing’s troublesome Starliner module is finally over. Last night, the empty capsule landed safely in White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams stayed onboard the International Space Station (ISS), though, after the agency decided the risk of losing the crew during the return mission was above the accepted threshold. The astronauts will come home in February 2025 onboard the competing Crew Dragon capsule of SpaceX.
On the post-flight press conference—which oddly didn’t feature a single Boeing representative—NASA confirmed the crew would be just fine if onboard. However, the agency also emphasized that it stands behind the decision to keep Wilmore and Williams in orbit.
Starliner experienced helium leaks and thruster issues on the way to the ISS, and even though it landed safely, the journey back home was not entirely flawless either. First, one of the thrusters failed; however, given the redundancy in design, a single thruster malfunction was not mission-threatening. Secondly, after coming out of a hot plasma environment, a navigation system similarly malfunctioned. The navigation system has its backup options, too, though, so once again, this situation didn’t affect the successful execution of the return mission.
The three parachutes opened as intended, and the Starliner touched down peacefully, with the tiny help of its airbag system smoothing the landing (for nobody onboard).
The plan for this test mission was to demonstrate the Starliner’s ability to perform safe and reliable crew transports to and from orbit. As a result, the Starliner was supposed to receive the certification stamp from NASA.
Given the situation, the agency is now too shy to give any specific answers about the state of the certification process. More options appear to be available, ranging from minor design changes needed before the first operational flight to, in the worst-case scenario, repeating the test mission altogether—at Boeing’s expense.
The outlook of more possible financial losses for Boeing came with speculations about the possibility of the company pulling the plug on NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. “I want to recognize the work the Starliner teams did to ensure a successful and safe undocking, deorbit, re-entry and landing. We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program,” said Mark Nappi, vice president and manager for the program at Boeing.