The spacecraft Starliner carrying astronaut Sunita Williams and her partner Bush Wilmore to the space station has landed safely on Earth after 3 months. It landed with the help of 3 large parachutes and airbags. According to NASA, the spacecraft separated from the International Space Station (ISS) at 3:30 am Indian time. It took about 6 hours to reach Earth.
The Starliner entered the Earth’s atmosphere at 9:15 am. Its speed was then about 2,735 km per hour. It landed at 9:32 am in the White Sand Space Harbor (desert) of New Mexico in the US.
The Boeing company has built this spacecraft for NASA. On June 5, Sunita and Bush were sent to the ISS on this spacecraft. It was a mission of only 8 days, but there were many doubts about its safe return. Therefore, NASA decided that the astronauts would be brought by SpaceX’s spacecraft instead of Boeing.
Currently, Boeing’s Starliner has returned safely to Earth without crew.
NASA held a press conference at 11 am regarding the return of Starliner and updates related to it. No representative of Boeing was present in it. On August 24, NASA had declared Boeing’s spacecraft Starliner unsafe for Sunita Williams’ return.
Since then, no Boeing official has participated in any press conference related to Starliner. NASA manager Steve Stich said that Starliner has landed safely. We have sent it for investigation. We will soon tell what caused the malfunction in the spacecraft.
Despite the ongoing issues between NASA and Boeing, both organizations will collaborate to investigate the Starliner spacecraft. This joint effort aims to determine the reasons behind the malfunction in Starliner’s propulsion system and to understand the cause of the helium leak.
