The beleaguered Starliner spacecraft, built by Boeing, successfully landed in New Mexico just after midnight Eastern time, ending a crucial test flight that proved to be a real headache for NASA.
Officials at the space agency feared that Starliner’s thrusters might malfunction during its return, just as some thrusters had on its journey to the International Space Station.
That’s why, when the gumdrop-shaped space capsule parachuted down to Earth, it carried only cargo — and its first crew remained safely on board the International Space Station.
Leaving them there “was a tough decision to make. It was really hard to determine whether to be uncrewed or not,” Steve Stich, the program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, told reporters earlier this week.
But there was enough uncertainty with regard to how the thrusters would perform that NASA officials preferred to err on the side of caution. The space agency, after all, remains haunted by two past disasters, the loss of space shuttles Columbia and Challenger and their crews.
After Starliner made a picture-perfect landing, Stich told reporters that the spacecraft did well during its return flight.
“It was a bullseye landing,” he said. “It’s really great to get the spacecraft back.”
Asked by a reporter if he had any second thoughts about NASA’s decision not to fly astronauts home on Starliner, Stich said “it’s always hard to have that retrospective look” but “I think we made the right decision.”
He said while he and others on the team felt happy about the successful landing, “there’s a piece of us, all of us, that we wish it would’ve been the way we had planned it” with astronauts on board when it landed.
“I think there’s, depending on who you are on the team, different emotions associated with that,” he continued. “I think it’s going to take a little time to work through that, for me a little bit, and then for everybody else on the Boeing and NASA team.”
Starliner launched on June 5 with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board, and Boeing and NASA initially said their test flight would last about eight days.
Instead, the mission stretched out for weeks as Boeing and NASA workers tried to understand why some thrusters had failed as Starliner approached the station.
The decision to bring Starliner back without its crew means that the astronauts will have to live on the station until February.
“Since we knew this was a test flight, with intention we put them through long-duration space station training,” says Dana Weigel, NASA’s program manager for the station, who adds that the astronauts have been helping out with chores and science experiments. “We had them well prepared to move into this role.”
The astronauts will be going home on a previously scheduled flight by Boeing’s competitor, SpaceX. NASA had to rejigger its plans to make sure two seats would be free in that SpaceX capsule.
What’s more, in case the space station suffers an emergency that forces an evacuation before that capsule arrives, the station’s crew had to jerry-rig two extra seats in a different SpaceX spacecraft that’s currently docked there.
All of this has been a blow to aerospace giant Boeing. Starliner had two previous flights, without a crew on board, and both experienced problems — its first flight, in 2019, didn’t even make it to the station.
SpaceX, meanwhile, received less money from NASA to develop a commercial space taxi service, yet nonetheless managed to develop a vehicle that’s been taking astronauts to and from the station for years.
NASA started its commercial crew program to encourage industry to take over the job of ferrying astronauts and cargo to the station, so that it could focus on going back to the moon and beyond.
Now that Starliner is back on the ground, Boeing and NASA will further analyze the thrusters to see if modifying the spacecraft or how it’s flown could keep the thrusters from overheating in the future.
Mission managers put the thrusters through their paces after Starliner undocked from the station and before it piloted itself to a safe landing at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.
“Many parts of the flight went extremely well, and Starliner is a great spacecraft,” Stich said. “What we really need to go do is look at the things that didn’t perform the way we expected.”
Transcript:
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Around midnight Eastern time, a gumdrop-shaped space capsule parachuted down through the dark sky and came in for a landing at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Touchdown. Starliner is back on Earth.
SIMON: A safe return for Starliner, the space taxi being developed by Boeing to carry NASA astronauts, and this was the end of what’s turned out to be a fairly stressful test flight. Glitches forced NASA officials to have Starliner fly home without its first crew. The astronauts remain aboard the International Space Station. NPR’s Nell Greenfieldboyce joins us. Nell, thanks so much for being with us.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: Hey, Scott. Thanks.
SIMON: The story of these two astronauts caught out in orbit has captured a lot of attention. Remind us why they couldn’t come home aboard the Starliner they took into orbit.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Well, basically, NASA was worried about the spacecraft’s thrusters. So, you know, thrusters are kind of important. They’re how a spacecraft moves around. And on the way to the station, some of them malfunctioned, although Starliner did dock as it was supposed to. And NASA and Boeing spent about two months analyzing data, testing hardware on the ground, trying to figure out what was going on. And NASA officials just couldn’t get comfortable sending astronauts home in it.
SIMON: They’re worried the thrusters might fail at some critical time.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Yeah, exactly. I mean, clearly, that did not happen. I mean, Starliner got back without a hitch. Their landing seemed to be almost flawless, but NASA has lost crews in the past. Remember Colombia and Challenger. And so, you know, when push came to shove, officials just did not want to take what could be seen as needless risks.
SIMON: Having Starliner back on the ground has got to be a relief for Boeing, who’s been somewhat chagrined over what’s happened.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Yeah. I mean, it’s somewhat of a vindication. I mean, apparently, things got pretty tense when NASA was trying to decide what to do about the return and the astronauts. But even though Starliner had this great landing, Boeing is still going to have to watch its crew, its first crew, going home in a rival company’s capsule, a spacecraft built by SpaceX.
SIMON: And the astronauts are still stuck there for several months, aren’t they? Next year?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: February. They’re stuck there till February. But NASA keeps saying, they’re not stranded. Don’t say they’re stranded, because in an emergency, they could get home. I mean, the station’s crew has kind of jerry-rigged a couple of extra seats in a capsule that’s docked there now, so they could evacuate if they needed to.
SIMON: And I happen to know, ’cause it’s been reported, they didn’t pack for such a long stay, did they?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: No, no. Although, you know, NASA says the station has plenty of food and clothes and other supplies. They’re sort of automated cargo flights. So, you know, they’re OK. And I mean, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are experienced astronauts. This is just kind of part of the job. I mean, they knew it was a test flight. And they’re also already helping out with the station chores and science experiments. They’ve both spent, you know, long missions in space before.
SIMON: Yeah. What happens next with Starliner? Do we know?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: So NASA and Boeing will keep looking at the thrusters. They’ll take the spacecraft back, look it over. They’ll analyze how the thrusters performed on the return trip. And, you know, NASA officials have been asked by reporters, what would you want to see before letting people go up in Starliner again? And they’ve just said it’s too soon to know. They’ve got to look at everything and think about it.
SIMON: What are the implications for NASA if Boeing is having these problems with what was supposed to be a reliable vehicle?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Well, the whole point of NASA’s commercial crew program was to have, you know, the industry take over routine trips to space. And so basically, they funded both Boeing and SpaceX to develop what are effectively space taxis. And SpaceX vehicles have been operating for several years now, and so NASA has that. And besides, you know, it’s unclear how long the space station is even going to be there.
SIMON: NASA has plans to keep it open until – for how long?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Till 2030. They’ve committed until 2030. I mean, NASA is really focused on the moon. The agency wants to put the first woman and the first person of color on the moon, and that’s their focus.
SIMON: NPR’s Nell Greenfieldboyce. Thanks so much for being with us.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Thank you.
