Boeing’s Starliner performs flawless touchdown without on-board crew, program’s future remains uncertain

After months of delays and uncertainty, Boeing’s Starliner capsule has returned from the International Space Station, touching down in White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico, just after midnight on Saturday. 

The capsule returned autonomously to Earth without its two crew members, NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who will remain aboard the station until next February. The space agency determined late last month that the pair will make their journey back to Earth onboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule, after Starliner experienced technical issues early in the mission. 

At a post-flight press conference on Saturday, NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stich called the flight “darn near flawless.” He added that the successful mission provoked mixed feelings among staff. 

“From a human perspective, all of us feel happy about the successful landing, but then there’s a piece of us, all of us, that we wish it would have been the way we had planned it,” he said. “We had planned to have the mission land with Butch and Suni onboard.”

Even though the spacecraft departed the station empty, the stakes were still extremely high for Boeing and NASA to nail this return mission. An unsuccessful flight very well could’ve spelled the end of the Starliner program altogether (Boeing has already poured over $1.5 billion into the capsule’s development, in addition to the $4.2 billion contract NASA awarded to the firm a decade ago). But this flawless flight has paved a plausible path for Starliner to continue, though engineers will need to modify the vehicle to ensure that the technical problems — which included malfunctioning thrusters and several helium leaks in the propulsion system — do not recur on future flights. 

Boeing representatives are keeping tight-lipped on the future of the program for now. Although two Boeing executives were scheduled to appear at the press conference, they cancelled at the last minute. Instead, Boeing provided a written statement to reporters: “I want to recognize the work the Starliner teams did to ensure a successful and safe undocking, deorbit, re-entry and landing,” Mark Nappi, program manager of Boeing’s commercial crew program, said. “We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program.”

Throughout the 90-plus days Starliner has been on orbit, Boeing has insisted that the capsule was safe enough to carry the astronauts home. On August 2, the company posted an update on its website that amounted to a public defense of the capsule. 

“Boeing remains confident in the Starliner spacecraft and its ability to return safely with crew,” the update said. “We continue to support NASA’s requests for additional testing, data, analysis and reviews to affirm the spacecraft’s safe undocking and landing capabilities. Our confidence is based on this abundance of valuable testing from Boeing and NASA.” 

Stich provided a little more detail, saying that Boeing and NASA will have a “little bit better idea” of the overall schedule for moving forward in a month or so, after they have time to conduct additional testing and review data.