After months of turmoil over its safety, Boeing's new astronaut capsule departed the International Space Station on Friday without its crew and headed back to Earth.
After months of turmoil over its safety, Boeing 's new astronaut capsule departed the International Space Station on Friday without its crew and headed back to Earth .
Boeing's first astronaut flight caps a journey filled with delays and setbacks. After the space shuttles retired more than a decade ago, NASA hired Boeing and SpaceX for orbital taxi service. Boeing ran into so many problems on its first test flight with no one aboard in 2019 that it had to repeat it. The 2022 do-over uncovered even more flaws and the repair bill topped $1 billion.
Even before the pair launched on June 5, Starliner's propulsion system was leaking helium. The leak was small and thought to be isolated, but four more cropped up after liftoff. Then five thrusters failed. Although four of the thrusters were recovered, it gave NASA pause as to whether more malfunctions might hamper the capsule's descent from orbit.
Starliner Space Station Earth Capsule Nasa Spacex Astronauts Suni Williams Butch Wilmore 15275486
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