Boeing’s Starliner Spacecraft Is Coming Back to Earth—Without NASA Astronauts

The Starliner spacecraft hasn’t had the smoothest ride thus far, but it will soon attempt its return home.

The Boeing vessel is scheduled to come back to Earth on Friday evening, The New York Times reported on Wednesday, parachuting into White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico six hours after undocking from the International Space Station. The return will take place a full three months after Starliner arrived at the ISS in June, but it will leave behind the astronauts it delivered to the space station.

“We have confidence in the vehicle,” Steve Stich, the manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, said during a news conference, according to the Times. “We’ve had two good landings with Starliner so far, and we’re expecting another one Friday.”

In the works for years, Starliner finally took off for the ISS with astronauts in tow earlier this summer. But as the craft approached the space station, it encountered propulsion system problems, The New York Times noted. NASA officials said they’re still not sure what caused those issues, but they don’t expect them to reoccur upon Starliner’s return.

Still, NASA decided that the vessel should come back sans the astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. The duo will stay on the ISS until February, the Times wrote, when they’ll return to Earth aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. Dana Weigel, NASA’s program manager for the space station, told the newspaper that Williams and Wilmore both trained for a longer mission, and that they know how to perform spacewalks and operate the ISS’s robotic arm.

“We had them well prepared to move into this role,” she said.

As for what will happen with Starliner after it returns to Earth, it’s not clear what NASA has planned. The most recent flight to the ISS was supposed to be the space agency’s last step in making sure that the craft could take astronauts to the space station once a year, The New York Times reported. Now, NASA could ask Boeing to undertake another crewed test flight before those more regular trips begin. (Last month, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that Kelly Ortberg, the new CEO of Boeing, had told him that the company would continue to work on Starliner.)

The first step, though, will be the craft’s return home tomorrow. If weather or technical issues force a delay, backup dates are set for September 10, 14, and 18.