Boeing Starliner Lands at White Sands After Clock Error Prompts Early Return

“We do have a healthy spacecraft,” said Jim Bridenstine, the NASA administrator. “There are many good milestones we have been able to achieve.”

What will happen next after Starliner lands?

Boeing and NASA will investigate what went wrong and fix it. NASA officials said it was too early to know whether Boeing will be required to fly another crewless mission to dock with the space station or whether it would be able to put astronauts on the next flight as currently planned.

Although the current mission could not perform all of its tasks, if landing is successful tomorrow, the two portions of greatest danger to astronauts — launch and return to Earth — will have been demonstrated.

The return of the capsule on land was unusual, at least for NASA. All previous landings of its capsules — the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs of the 1960s and 1970s — were in the ocean. After all, you might be safer diving into water than an expanse of sand.

But Russian astronauts have always landed on solid ground, and that approach offers advantages. Salt water corrodes metal, which would complicate plans to reuse Starliner capsules for future missions. Also, a capsule hitting an ocean wave at the wrong angle could sink. (That is what happened during testing of Apollo capsules, requiring a revamping of the design.)

The returned Starliner capsule is expected to be used again for a future mission carrying astronauts.

When will NASA be ready to fly crews to the space station again?

NASA still hopes to carry astronauts to orbit again in the first half of 2020, and has hired two companies to take astronauts to the space station, Boeing and SpaceX. Both have encountered hurdles and delays.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/22/science/boeing-starliner-landing.html?emc=rss&partner=rss