Boeing’s Troubled Starliner Returns to Earth Sans Astronauts

Boeing’s Starliner capsule returned from the International Space Station, on the night of Sept. 6, but without astronauts onboard. It landed in the New Mexico desert at about midnight EST after a six-hour return flight, apparently intact, suggesting that it could have safely carried astronauts back to Earth. The Starliner carried NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the ISS in early June for a mission that was supposed to last eight days, but they will now be staying until next February when a SpaceX mission will arrive to finally take them home to Earth. Problems with the Starliner’s thrusters and a helium leak led NASA managers to keep the astronauts on the ISS, rather than risk returning them to Earth on the Boeing spacecraft.