In a week, by the time this article is published, if all goes according to plan, the Starliner spacecraft will already be back home, but the two astronauts who traveled on it will still be aboard the International Space Station (ISS). NASA has announced that the Boeing ship will bid farewell to the station and return to Earth.”no earlier than 6:04 p.m. EDT (midnight in Spain) on Friday, September 6“The capsule will have to return without its crew, as the agency has already reported, since they will return aboard a SpaceX Crew-9 capsule in February 2025.
The two astronauts, Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams, were only going to spend 10 days in space, but they have already been there for months and They will not return until six months later. Technical problems have been a constant during this mission and the journey will not end as planned.
After undocking, Starliner will take about six hours to reach the landing zone at White Sands Spaceport in New Mexico. The spacecraft will land around 6:03 p.m. on Saturday, September 7.descending with parachutes and airbags inflated to cushion the impact.
Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams on the ISS
Omicrono
The maneuvers that will be performed within a week are not new to the space company. Starliner has already successfully entered and landed without a crew during two previous orbital flight tests. During one of the flight tests, the spacecraft also demonstrated that it could undock from the station autonomously and safely. It is for this reason that the operation next Friday is expected to go smoothly.
Although Boeing has been saying for weeks that its spacecraft can return without complications, NASA is not convinced of the safety of the two astronauts. During its outbound trip in early June, the Starliner suffered helium leaks and five of its 28 reaction control system thrusters failed on the way to the ISS.
Starliner docked to the ISS
Omicrono
During these months, the company and the space agency studied the origin and possible solutions to these problems. Finally, NASA entrusted SpaceX with the return home of Willmore and Williams. This plan B consists of leaving two empty seats on the Crew 9 ship who will travel to the ISS at the end of September as part of the agency’s regular astronaut rotation.
In February 2025, as planned in the rotation plan, the SpaceX capsule will return and these two seats will be occupied by Williams and Wilmore. SpaceX and Boeing have been tasked by NASA to become the agency’s transportation providers to the ISS, in response to their independence from the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. SpaceX with the Crew Dragon obtained NASA’s certificate in 2020, Boeing was to receive it after this first manned test mission.
