The troubled Boeing Starliner will depart from the International Space Station (ISS) tonight, traveling back to Earth without its crew and bringing an end to its first crewed test flight. After an issue with its thrusters was discovered during the outward journey, several months of testing have not given NASA complete confidence that the spacecraft is safe to carry crew members through the rigors of re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, so the astronauts it carried will stay on the space station while the spacecraft returns home.
NASA is live-streaming the departure of the Starliner from the ISS and its landing in New Mexico, and you can watch both events through the evening and into the night.
Before the Starliner undocked, the ground control team at Starliner mission control in Houston spoke with astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore who remain on the space station. They will travel back to Earth on a SpaceX Crew Dragon in February next year instead. “We have your backs, and you’ve got this,” Williams told flight control. “Bring her back to Earth.”
Once it is cleared for undocking, the Starliner will be released from the hooks on the ISS docking system, and springs on the spacecraft will push it away from station. Once it is around 5 meters’ distance from the station, the Starliner will fire its thrusters to back directly away for around 200 meters, then it will move above the station.
These maneuvers will use Starliner’s forward-facing reaction control thrusters, which have been working as expected and do not include the five rear-facing reaction control thrusters that have been causing all the problems during the test flight. The thruster firing sequence will take about five minutes, and it will move the spacecraft away from the station, from where it can enter a path to carry it back to Earth.
The Starliner will come in to land at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, with touchdown scheduled for for 12:03 a.m. ET. The weather is looking good at the landing site, and you can watch a live stream of the touchdown below with coverage scheduled to begin at 10:50 p.m. ET.