Astronaut thriller

Unmanned “Starliner” safely back on Earth

The "Starliner" capsule made it back undamaged.

(Bild: AP/Boeing)

Good news at last: The crisis-plagued spaceship "Starliner" has returned to Earth without any major problems after three months in space. Two astronauts, however, still have to wait to be picked up.

The capsule manufactured by the US company Boeing undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) 400 kilometers above the Earth shortly after midnight German time without a crew on board, as live recordings from the US space agency NASA showed. After around six hours, the "Starliner" touched down in the desert of the US state of New Mexico.

Return went according to plan
Shortly before the Starliner landed, first two braking parachutes and then three parachutes opened as planned, allowing the capsule to touch down gently in the desert. Finally, six landing airbags deployed. On touchdown, the capsule was only supposed to have a speed of 6.4 kilometers per hour.

A Nasa commentator in the livestream said that this was roughly equivalent to the speed of an elevator in a high-rise building.

The moment of landing in the video: 

Astronauts have to wait
Astronaut Suni Williams and astronaut Barry Wilmore were actually supposed to fly back to Earth in the spaceship - three months ago. But on the outward flight, some of the engines overheated and failed, and helium leaked out.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams remain on the space station for the time being.

(Bild: AP/NASA)

Due to safety concerns, Nasa officials decided to keep the two astronauts on the space station. Originally they were only supposed to stay there for eight days, but now it is likely to be eight months.

Disagreements in the risk assessment
Experts from Boeing and NASA disagreed on how high the risk to the astronauts' health would have been on a manned return flight. When re-entering the earth's atmosphere, enormous forces act on space capsules. Numerous sensors on board the capsule were intended to measure what the conditions would have been like for humans inside when re-entering the atmosphere.

Williams and Wilmore are to be brought back to Earth on another spacecraft: Nasa is keeping two of the four seats free for them on a mission to the ISS planned from the end of September with the "Dragon" developed by the private space company SpaceX. However, the return flight is not planned until February.

Spacesuits are already on Earth
The two "Starliner" spacesuits from Williams and Wilmore, on the other hand, are already back on Earth - because this Boeing equipment cannot be used in the SpaceX capsule. Should something happen on the ISS before the new "Dragon" arrives, only Williams can get into a reserve spacesuit.

However, two emergency seats have been set up in a Dragon capsule for the two of them in the cargo hold, which also work without a spacesuit. In the event of an emergency on the space station, they could then board there together with four other ISS space travelers and fly back to Earth.