EIt is back on Earth. Boeing’s Starliner capsule landed this Saturday, September 7, but without the astronauts who had taken off for the International Space Station (ISS), NASA having judged that the risk was too great. The capsule, which had left the ISS about six hours earlier, landed gently on the White Sands space station in New Mexico, around 04:01 GMT, its descent having been slowed by parachutes and cushioned by airbags.
“Separation is confirmed,” NASA said in its video broadcast at 22:04 GMT (00:04 Saturday, Paris time), before adding that “Starliner is now moving away from the station and beginning its return to Earth.”
Boeing in turmoil again
In turmoil in recent months, after several incidents on its aircraft in civil aviation, the aeronautics giant Boeing had again suffered a hard blow in June after a series of failures of the thruster and helium leaks on the capsule, detected during its first manned trip to the ISS. Having left for an eight-day mission in space on August 24, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will now not be able to return to dry land until February 2025.
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