Sep 7, 2024 - Business

NASA's Boeing Starliner returns from space without crew

Lauren Floyd

This handout image supplied by NASA shows Boeing and NASA teams work around NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test Starliner spacecraft after it landed without its crew at White Sands Space Harbor. — Boeing and NASA teams work around NASA's Boeing Crew Flight Test Starliner spacecraft after it landed without its crew at White Sands Space Harbor on Sept. 6, 2024. Photo: Aubrey Gemignani/NASA via Getty Images

NASA's Boeing Starliner has returned from space after hiccups with a three-month flight test, but its crew will continue its work until next year.

Why it matters: NASA and Boeing found "helium leaks and experienced issues with the spacecraft's reaction control thrusters," the day after astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched on June 5 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, NASA says in a news release.

What they're saying: "Following weeks of in-space and ground testing, technical interchange meetings, and agency reviews, NASA made the decision to prioritize safety and return Starliner without its crew," NASA says in the release.

The Starliner landed just after 10pm MDT at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.
"Wilmore and Williams will continue their work aboard station as part of the Expedition 71/72 crew, returning in February 2025 with the agency's SpaceX Crew-9 mission," NASA says.

Zoom out: The flight test is part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which has a goal of "safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station and low Earth orbit."

"This already is providing additional research time and has increased the opportunity for discovery aboard humanity's microgravity testbed, including helping NASA prepare for human exploration of the Moon and Mars," NASA says in its release.

Go deeper: Boeing's Starliner successfully docks with ISS in first crewed mission

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NASA's Boeing Starliner returns from space without crew

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