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

'It would have been a safe, successful landing with the crew on board, had we have had Butch and Suni on board,' said Steve Stich, manager of the commercial crew program at NASA.

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 morning after the landing.

But the difficulties during the mission and the extended stay in orbit for the two astronauts have embarrassed Boeing, and there could be uncertainty 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, in particular how to avoid overheating of the thrusters.

"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.

NASA initially announced that two high-level Boeing space officials would take part in the Saturday news conference, but then they did not. "They deferred to NASA to represent the mission," said Joel Montalbano, deputy associate administrator of NASA's space operations mission directorate.

Boeing did release a statement quoting Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager for Starliner.

"I want to recognize the work the Starliner teams did to ensure a successful and safe undocking, deorbit, reentry and landing," he said. "We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program."

Montalbano said Boeing played a key role for the International Space Station, the commercial crew program with Starliner and in manufacturing the core stage of the new Space Launch System. "Their work is critical our success, and we fully expect calling to continue all three of those programs," he said.

Before the undocking, Williams, who several years ago had given this vehicle the name Calypso, thanked the mission control team.

"It is time to bring Calypso home," she said. "We have your backs and you've got this. Bring her back to Earth. Good luck."

In turn, Chloe Mehring, the flight director, thanked the astronauts, who have spent years preparing for this flight. "We remember every setback and every revelation with you," Mehring said. "The teams on the ground have worked countless hours over the last few weeks, months, and, for a group of us, years to bring Calypso back, and we're ready to that today."

Starliner began its trip back to Earth by retracting hooks that had held it tight to the space station. Springs on the spacecraft then pushed it away from the docking port. At that moment, it was about 260 miles above central China.

A series of thruster firings gently nudged Starliner up and over the space station. At a higher altitude, it was moving more slowly than the space station and the distance between them grew quickly.

That was an uneventful beginning to the end of the mission, which launched in June, on a test flight that was the first time Starliner carried people to orbit. The flight was intended as a final shakedown before NASA certified the spacecraft for once-a-year missions taking astronauts to and from the space station.

The vehicle's propulsion system experienced problems during its approach to the space station, including several balky thrusters and leaks of helium, a gas used to push propellant in the weightlessness of orbit. Although Starliner was able to dock successfully, the cause of the problems is still not fully understood, and NASA officials decided it would be safer for Starliner to return without anyone aboard.

As it moved into position to reenter the atmosphere, Starliner conducted test firings of 12 thrusters on the crew capsule section of the spacecraft. One did not work, but that does not pose a problem, because there are two redundant systems of six thrusters each.

"This one, for some reason, just never fired," Stich said.

It was, however, crucial that the redundant thruster did work for Starliner's successful survival through the searing passage through the atmosphere.

The flight controllers also fired 10 of the thrusters on the service module -- the cylindrical section below the crew capsule -- and those all worked as expected.

At 11:17 p.m., the large thrusters on Starliner fired for almost a minute to drop Starliner out of orbit. It then discarded its service module -- the cylindrical component below the crew capsule that contained the troublesome thrusters.

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.

People in New Mexico, Arizona and northern Mexico shared videos on the social network X showing the heated spacecraft streaking through the night skies. Soon after, Starliner descended under three parachutes, with its final impact on the desert floor cushioned by air bags at the bottom of the capsule.

The two Starliner astronauts left behind by the spacecraft will become full-fledged members of the space station crew. NASA calls each rotation of crew members an "expedition," and Williams and Wilmore will now be part of Expedition 72.

Later this month, two other astronauts, Nick Hague of NASA and Aleksandr Gorbunov of Russia, are scheduled to launch to the space station in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. They too will serve as part of Expedition 72.

For Williams and Wilmore to have seats on the return trip to Earth next year, two other NASA astronauts who had been scheduled to serve on Expedition 72 -- Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson -- were bumped from the mission, known as Crew-9.