Starliner returns to Earth without incident and without Butch and Suni

Three months ago the Boeing Starliner launched into space to take two astronauts, Butch Williams and Suni Wilmore, and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). Butch and Suni were supposed to return in eight. Three months have gone by and they are still there. The Alabama built Boeing Starliner returned on Friday night – without Butch and Suni.

They will await the arrive of SpaceX's Dragon9 mission – join that team and then return to Earth in February – eight months later than originally planned.

Starliner left the ISS unmanned and landed at the White Sands Space Harbort in New Mexico without incident in the early morning hours on Saturday.

Boeing Space said on the X social media platform: "Starliner landed today at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico at 12:01 a.m. ET on Sept. 7 (10:01 p.m. MT on Sept. 6). Teams on the ground welcomed the spacecraft and are now preparing to transport Starliner back to Florida for analysis and refurbishment."

A United Launch Alliance rocket lifted Starliner into space in June; but once the space craft was under its own power there were issues with helium leaks and thrusters delivering inconsistent propulsion. One thruster failed altogether. It was a bumpy ride but Butch and Suni arrived at the ISS as planned.

Boeing and NASA engineers said that the Teflon seals on the thrusters suffered degradation at high temperatures. Extensive testing of the thrusters occurred on ground in July as engineers attempted to replicate what the thrusters were doing.

Boeing's engineers and administrators were convinced that Butch and Suni could have returned as planned on the Starliner. NASA engineers and administrators were not convinced and ultimately that cautiousness led to NASA pulling the plug on a manned return of the Starliner. Boeing strongly disagree with NASA on this.

Starliner performed "flawlessly" on its return trip to Earth.

Steve Stich is the program manager for NASA's commercial crew program.

At a post-flight press conference on Saturday, Stich called the flight "darn near flawless." He added that the successful mission provoked mixed feelings among staff.

"From a human perspective, all of us feel happy about the successful landing, but then there's a piece of us, all of us, that we wish it would have been the way we had planned it," Stich said. "We had planned to have the mission land with Butch and Suni onboard."

The hiccups the Starliner experienced in flying to and docking with the space station means that Boeing is going to have to address the issues with the seals on the thrusters before there is another Starliner mission. That is likely very achievable; but the bad publicity of this mission has brought the future of the Starliner into question.

Starliner was largely built at Decatur's ULA rocket factory in Athens.

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