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After 12 weeks in space, Boeing's Starliner spacecraft will finally return from the International Space Station on September 6, albeit without its two-person crew.
The distressed spacecraft will undock from the space lab around 6 p.m. ET and will spend about six hours getting closer to home before landing around midnight at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who traveled to the space station aboard the Starliner on June 5, will remain aboard the space laboratory.
NASA announced on August 24 that experts were concerned about gas leaks and problems with the propulsion system of the Starliner capsule, leading the agency to conclude that the spacecraft is not safe enough to complete its mission with a crew on board.
“The unmanned Starliner spacecraft will perform a fully autonomous reentry with flight controllers at Starliner Mission Control in Houston and at Boeing Mission Control Center in Florida,” according to a NASA update posted Thursday. “Teams on the ground will be able to remotely control the spacecraft as needed through the necessary maneuvers for a safe undocking, reentry and parachute-assisted landing in the southwestern United States.”
The performance of the Starliner vehicle during the return journey could be crucial to the future of the entire Boeing program.
If the spacecraft suffers an accident or if NASA ultimately decides not to certify the vehicle for human space flight (a move that would allow the vehicle to make routine trips to space), it would be another blow to Boeing's already tarnished reputation.
Repeating this test flight and implementing new designs on Starliner could cost the company millions of dollars, on top of the approximately $1.5 billion the company has already lost on the Starliner program.
“We all wanted to complete the (Boeing Starliner) crewed test flight, and I think we're unanimously disappointed that we weren't able to do that,” Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate, said last week. But “you don't want that disappointment to weigh unhealthily on your decision.”
Even if Starliner's unmanned return mission goes well, NASA will still face a key decision: Will the spacecraft be certified for human spaceflight even though it didn't complete its mission as planned?
Throughout the weeks that engineers on the ground worked to resolve the Starliner's booster problems and leaks, Boeing maintained that it was confident the vehicle would be safe enough to bring astronauts Williams and Wilmore home.
In a statement on August 24, Boeing said its “first and foremost focus remains on the safety of the crew and the spacecraft. We are executing the mission as directed by NASA and preparing the spacecraft for a safe and successful unmanned reentry.”
Williams and Wilmore are now scheduled to fly home no earlier than February aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. The Crew Dragon spacecraft has been certified to carry astronaut missions for about four years and has made about a dozen crewed trips to space.
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