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The infamous Boeing Starliner capsule will return to Earth without astronauts: the date has been announced
The Starliner capsule will undock from the ISS no earlier than September 6. Source: NASA
NASA has announced that the Boeing Starliner capsule will return to Earth no earlier than next Friday (September 6), provided weather conditions are favorable and there are no technical problems. However, there will be no astronauts on board.
If all goes according to plan, the capsule will undock from the International Space Station (ISS) on September 6 at 18:04 EST. It will land six hours later at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, Space.com reports.
As a reminder, Starliner launched on June 5, 2024, its first-ever crewed mission, delivering NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore to the International Space Station. A day later, the capsule docked, but there were several malfunctions. In particular, the Boeing Starliner suffered several helium leaks, and five of the 28 reaction control system engines failed on the way to the orbiting laboratory.
The Starliner mission, called Crew Flight Test (CFT), was supposed to last up to 10 days, but NASA and Boeing kept the capsule in orbit day after day, studying the engine problem. Experts were trying to understand what caused the malfunction and whether it could occur again on the way back to Earth.
After numerous checks, NASA decided that it was too risky to return the astronauts to Starliner. Thus, last weekend, the agency announced that Williams and Wilmore will return home on a SpaceX Dragon capsule in February 2025. The Boeing capsule will return home without a crew.
"The uncrewed Starliner spacecraft will perform a fully autonomous return with flight controllers at Starliner Mission Control in Houston and at Boeing Mission Control Center in Florida. Teams on the ground are able to remotely command the spacecraft if needed through the necessary maneuvers for a safe undocking, re-entry, and parachute-assisted landing in the southwest United States," NASA said.
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