The beleaguered Starliner spacecraft, built by Boeing, successfully landed in New Mexico just after midnight Eastern time, ending a crucial test flight that proved to be a real headache for NASA.
Officials at the space agency feared that Starliner’s thrusters might malfunction during its return, just as some thrusters had on its journey to the International Space Station.
That’s why, when the gumdrop-shaped space capsule parachuted down to Earth, it carried only cargo — and its first crew remained safely on board the International Space Station.
Leaving them there “was a tough decision to make. It was really hard to determine whether to be uncrewed or not,” Steve Stich, the program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, told reporters earlier this week.
But there was enough uncertainty with regard to how the thrusters would perform that NASA officials preferred to err on the side of caution. The space agency, after all, remains haunted by two past disasters, the loss of space shuttles Columbia and Challenger and their crews.
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www.npr.org/2024/09/07/nx-s1-5103722/starliner-nasa-boeing-crew-space-station-lands