Boeing Starliner capsule returns to Earth after crewless mission

A Boeing Starliner spacecraft on Friday detached from the International Space Station (ISS) and headed for Earth without a crew, ending a protracted test mission plagued by technical problems. The first two astronauts who were supposed to fly on the Starliner in June this year, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, remained on the ISS along with seven other astronauts as the Starliner autonomously left the station at 18:04 Eastern Time (2204 GMT), Reuters reports, according to UNN. 

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Wilmore and Williams said goodbye to the capsule, whose faulty propulsion system extended their initial eight-day test mission to eight months. Instead of returning to the Starliner, the astronauts will return to Earth in February 2025 on a SpaceX spacecraft, NASA announced last week.

Boeing engineers have downloaded new software for the Starliner that allows the capsule to return to Earth without a crew. This trip will be a key test of the Starliner's maneuvering capabilities.

The capsule will use its maneuvering engines to gradually descend into orbit and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere at approximately 23:17 (0317 GMT on Saturday), after which it is expected to parachute in at 00:03 at the White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico.

Earlier, five of the Starliner's 28 maneuvering engines failed while Wilmore and Williams were aboard during an approach to the ISS in June. The same propulsion system also had several leaks of helium, which is used to pressurize the engines.

Despite the successful docking on June 6, these malfunctions led to a months-long investigation by Boeing with the support of NASA, costing the company $125 million, bringing the total cost overruns for the Starliner program to more than $1.6 billion since 2016.

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Problems with the Starliner have been ongoing since an unsuccessful unmanned test flight to the ISS in 2019. In 2022, a second mission took place, which was largely successful, although some engines failed again.

The problems with the Starliner undermine Boeing's position in the space industry, which the company dominated for decades before the emergence of Elon Musk's SpaceX, which offered cheaper launches of satellites and astronauts and changed the way NASA works with private companies.

After the Starliner lands in New Mexico, Boeing plans to continue investigating the causes of the engine failure in space. However, the section with the engines - the “service module” responsible for maneuvering in space - will separate from the capsule before re-entry and burn up during re-entry. This means that Boeing will have to use simulations to find out the causes of engine failures in space.

Equipped with a heat shield for reentry protection, the Starliner will deploy a series of parachutes to slow its descent and inflate external airbags before landing to soften the impact.