Boeing Starliner’s future is unclear, even after safe landing

The Starliner has landed.

Boeing’s troubled spacecraft has finally come home, but the two NASA astronauts who traveled in it to the International Space Station in June remain in orbit.

Because of problems with Starliner’s propulsion system during its approach to the space station in June, NASA officials decided not to put astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore on Starliner for the return trip. They will spend an additional five months on the space station as part of the crew before coming back to Earth around February in a spacecraft built and managed by SpaceX.

For the most part, the undocking and atmospheric reentry of Starliner proceeded smoothly. So did the capsule’s landing under parachutes at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday (10:01 p.m. Friday local time). That supported the earlier assertions of Boeing officials that the company’s vehicle was safe for the astronauts.

“It would have been a safe, successful landing with the crew on board, had we have had Butch and Suni on board,” Steve Stich, manager of the commercial crew program at NASA, said during a news conference early Saturday after the landing.

The crew capsule reentered Earth’s atmosphere over the central Pacific, traveling to the northeast, crossing northwest Mexico en route to touching down in the Chihuahuan Desert. Starliner descended under three parachutes, with its final impact on the desert floor cushioned by air bags at the bottom of the capsule.

But the difficulties during the mission and the extended stay in orbit for the two astronauts have embarrassed Boeing, and there could be uncertainty about how much the company is willing to continue to invest in the Starliner program.

During the news conference, Stich referred to the next Starliner flight as Starliner-1 — the designation of the first operational mission after NASA certifies the vehicle as ready for taking crews of four to and from the space station. He talked about changes that engineering teams that Boeing has formed to come up with changes needed before the next Starliner flight.

“That work has already started, and that’s really the path to Starliner-1,” Stich said. He also said that engineers need to delve into the data collected during the test flight before deciding on a plan and a timeline.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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