Boeing's Starliner spacecraft successfully splashed down in New Mexico just after midnight earlier today after undocking from the International Space Station (ISS) in the evening yesterday. The landing saw Starliner successfully fire its thrusters to adjust itself for orbital reentry, and the ship's landing marks the completion of the ship's crewed flight to the ISS.
However, Boeing's crewed spacecraft failed to carry its crew back to Earth after NASA decided in August to use SpaceX's Crew Dragon for crew return as agency experts were unable to reach a consensus for returning astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on Starliner in the wake of thruster malfunctions on the ship.
Starliner Successfully Adjusts Attitude For Orbital Reentry Before Landing In The Desert
Ahead of today's landing, mission managers gave the ship the go ahead for its crucial de orbit burn. This burn involved Starliner's orbital maneuvering and attitude control (OMAC) thrusters, out of which one thruster had developed problems during the ship's ISS docking in June and extended its stay in space. This time around, the thrusters fired successfully at 11:18 p.m. Eastern Time, and once their job was done, the ship's service module at its bottom successfully jettisoned away.
The service module separation also exposed the ship's heat shield to the atmosphere to allow it to begin the most stressful phase of its journey. Its deorbit burn reduced the spacecraft's speed by 290 miles per hour or 130 meters per second, and after the heatshield deployed, the ship faced temperatures of up to 3,000 Fahrenheit after it entered the atmosphere.
This strenuous portion of Starliner's journey is called its entry interface, during which the ship enters a four and a half minute communications blackout because of the plasma surrounding it. The entry interface saw Starliner slow itself down from a breakneck speed of 17,500 miles per hour.
Since Starliner is designed to land on Earth—the only US-built crewed spacecraft capable of doing so—its heatshield also has to jettison before a landing. This allows the ship's bottom airbags to deploy to cushion its landing on the ground. Today's mission saw the heatshield separate from the spacecraft roughly 30,000 feet after it entered the atmosphere.
Like SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, Starliner also softens its final landing phase by deploying two sets of parachutes. The first of these are the drogue parachutes, which deploy at roughly 8,000 feet and at the same time with the heatshield jettison.
Since Starliner lands on the ground, it removes one set of complicated weather that teams have to account for before a landing. Soon after the drogues deployed, Starliner's main parachutes successfully opened, after which the landing teams on the ground confirmed deployment as they heard the accompanying booms.
Crucially for Starliner, all three parachutes were successfully deployed. Parachutes are one of the most complex components of a spacecraft, and Starliner has also suffered from problems with them before. Starliner's airbag deployment was the final phase of its landing, after which the ship landed in White Sands, New Mexico, at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time.
About the author: Ramish is a seasoned technology writer and editor with more than a decade of experience. He specializes in semiconductor fabrication and market analysis. With a background in finance and supply chain management - via his bachelors in Finance and a micromasters in supply chain management from MIT - Ramish combines financial rigor with deep industry insight to deliver accurate and authoritative coverage.
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