Boeing Starliner returns to Earth, leaving Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore behind on International Space Station
In some major relief to troubled aviation giant Boeing, its experimental spacecraft, Starliner, on Friday returned to Earth from its first manned mission to the International Space Station (ISS).?The Boeing Starliner successfully parachuted into New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range, six hours after it undocked from the ISS, without its crew.
Boeing Starliner returns to Earth
The Starliner descended on autopilot through the desert darkness, in an uneventful landing, which many, including top NASA officials, feared could go horribly wrong.
Landed safely, but what is next for?Boeing Starliner
While Boeing, which insisted that the Starliner was safe, has managed to save some face with a successful return, the future of its space capsule is uncertain.
That is because two NASA astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who were the crew members of Starliner's first human mission to the ISS, are still stuck in space.
What went wrong for Boeing Starliner's first mission?
The duo, who went on what was supposed to be an eight-day mission to the ISS, boarded the Starliner, which has been plagued by technical issues even before it took off from Earth.
Even after successfully reaching the ISS, Starliner faced issues, including thruster trouble and helium loss, which eventually forced NASA to step in and decide that it was too risky to bring the two astronauts back on the Boeing space capsule.
This was a double whammy for Boeing, as the Starliner originally did not have an autopilot and had to be controlled manually while landing. Boeing, however, managed to overcome this with a software update, and Starliner, on its return to Earth, was fully automated.
As for Williams and Wilmore, the duo will continue to be stationed on the ISS and will only return to Earth in February 2025, on a SpaceX rocket, and not on a Boeing.
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