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Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft successfully undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) at 6:04 p.m. Eastern time earlier today after spending months in space. The Starliner, which launched in June, was initially scheduled to return to Earth after a few weeks. However, its return was delayed because the spacecraft’s thrusters malfunctioned during its docking with the ISS. That prompted a months-long investigation by NASA and Boeing, with things coming to a head last month when the agency ruled that the lack of consensus among experts on the matter violated its rules for astronaut safety during missions.
After undocking, Starliner will close its inlet cover and proceed with thruster checks before teams on the ground decide whether to initiate a deorbit burn to begin its entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
Starliner exits approach ellipsoid after undocking in major milestone
Ground teams will decide whether to initiate the deorbit burn at 10:57 p.m. Eastern Time. If the decision is made to proceed with the burn, the spacecraft will fire its thrusters twenty minutes later. Its deorbit burn will be the most important part of Starliner’s return journey, and if the spacecraft performs as planned, it will land at the White Sands Landing Site in New Mexico shortly after midnight.
Starliner’s biggest milestone so far has been breaking out of the ellipsoid of approach around the ISS. This increases the station’s safety margin, as it ensures that the spacecraft will not come close to the station for 24 hours, even if it loses all its thrusters.
The deorbit burn will fire the spacecraft’s four orbital maneuvering and attitude control (OMAC) thrusters for a 59-second burn to allow it to enter Earth’s atmosphere, slowing it by 130 meters per second. If this burn is successful, the spacecraft should return safely to Earth as its thrusters will have cleared a burn crucial to the landing profile.
Prior to today’s separation, NASA and Boeing ran simulations for the undocking as part of their preparations for the flight. During a pre-departure press conference on Wednesday, NASA’s commercial crew manager Steve Stich shared that Boeing may even perform some hot thruster fires after Starliner exits the approach ellipsoid as part of Boeing’s crew flight test mission learning.
Starliner’s undocking profile for today’s mission was different from the one during its previous orbital flight test. This profile was designed to quickly remove the spacecraft from the ISS and be simpler than the other return profile. It also places less stress on the spacecraft’s thrusters, as Starliner relies primarily on its forward thrusters to pull away from the station.
While their spacecraft is now en route to Earth, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will use SpaceX’s Crew-8 Dragon, currently docked at the ISS, as their emergency escape craft. The astronauts are not yet stranded or trapped on the station, according to Stich, as the NASA official shared during the latest conference that now, “Crew 8 is your emergency return vehicle, and when crew 9 gets there, that will be your vehicle, that will be your vehicle, that will be your return vehicle for nominal emergencies and any emergencies..”