Watch Live as a Busted Boeing Starliner Returns to Earth Without Its Crew

Boeing’s Starliner is getting acceptable for its long-anticipated instrumentality to Earth, leaving down 2 astronauts connected committee the International Space Station (ISS). It won’t beryllium routine, arsenic Starliner volition person to rapidly and safely determination distant from the ISS contempt its malfunctioning thrusters and helium leaks.

The glitching Boeing spacecraft is scheduled to undock from the abstraction station connected Friday astatine 6:04 p.m. ET, opening its six-hour travel backmost home. The unit capsule is returning without a unit connected board, targeting a landing astatine White Sands Space Harbor successful New Mexico connected Saturday astatine 12:03 a.m. ET. For its undocking, Starliner volition execute a breakout burn that’s meant to enactment little unit connected its thrusters and assistance it determination distant quicker from the abstraction station.

The spacecraft’s undocking and instrumentality volition beryllium streamed unrecorded connected NASA’s website and the abstraction agency’s YouTube Channel. You tin besides ticker it astatine the livestream below. The livestream volition statesman astatine 5:45 p.m. ET connected Friday for the undocking of the spacecraft, and volition resume astatine 10:50 p.m. ET for the anticipated landing of Starliner.

Boeing’s archetypal crewed trial to the ISS is yet coming to an extremity aft a less-than-ideal travel to orbit. And that’s putting it mildly. The spacecraft launched to the ISS connected June 5, carrying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunni Williams. Starliner has been docked to the abstraction presumption for 3 months arsenic teams connected the crushed debated whether oregon not to instrumentality the unit connected committee the troubled spacecraft.

During its thrust to the ISS, five of the spacecraft’s thrusters failed and the spacecraft developed five helium leaks, 1 of which was identified anterior to liftoff. Mission teams ran tests connected the crushed to effort and place the main contented down the thruster glitch earlier yet deciding to instrumentality an uncrewed Starliner and bring backmost its unit connected committee SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft.

The 2 astronauts, Williams and Wilmore, volition instrumentality with SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission. The Starliner unit is present slated for instrumentality successful February 2025, aft having spent astir 8 months successful abstraction portion primitively readying for an eight-day enactment connected committee the ISS.

The Crewed Flight Test is portion of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and is meant to transport unit and cargo to and from the ISS nether a $4.3 cardinal declaration with the abstraction agency. NASA’s different commercialized partner, SpaceX, has truthful acold launched 8 crews to the abstraction station, and is not lone getting acceptable to motorboat its ninth unit but besides instrumentality the stranded Starliner astronauts.

Starliner’s uncrewed instrumentality is simply a large stroke to the program, which has suffered galore delays and method hiccups implicit the years. Let’s conscionable anticipation that the spacecraft’s travel to Earth goes amended than its travel to space. As for the aboriginal of the Starliner program, that’s present anyone’s guess.

More: Let’s Look Back astatine Boeing’s 10-Year Struggle to Launch Humans connected Starliner