NASA announced today that Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is scheduled to detach from the International Space Station (ISS) at 6:04 pm Eastern Time on September 6 and land by parachute at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico approximately 6 hours later, provided the weather conditions are favorable and there are no technical issues.
The Starliner, which launched on June 5 for its first manned mission, transported NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the ISS. While the spacecraft successfully docked with the ISS a day later, it encountered several issues, including helium leaks and the failure of five out of 28 reaction control system thrusters.
Initially, the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission was planned to last about 10 days. However, due to the need to investigate the thruster malfunctions, NASA and Boeing extended the mission’s duration to thoroughly understand the issues and evaluate the risks for Starliner’s return to Earth.
Ultimately, NASA decided that Williams and Wilmore will return to Earth in February next year aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, leaving the Starliner to return autonomously without a crew.
Today, NASA and Boeing conducted a joint flight readiness review meeting to finalize Starliner’s return date. The spacecraft will be controlled remotely by ground teams at the Starliner Mission Control Center in Houston and Boeing’s Mission Control Center in Florida. Starliner has successfully returned to Earth autonomously twice during previous unmanned test flights in December 2019 and May 2022, although the first mission failed to dock with the ISS.
