(Reuters) – Boeing’s new Starliner capsule is due to return to Earth on Wednesday after its first uncrewed trip to the International Space Station (ISS), concluding a high-stakes test flight for the spacecraft.
Less than a week after launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the CST-100 Starliner was scheduled to autonomously undock from the ISS at 2:36 p.m. EDT (6:36 p.m. GMT) before a return flight of more than five hours.
If all goes as planned, the mission will conclude with the craft’s re-entry into the atmosphere, followed by a parachute landing in the middle of the desert, near White Sands, New Mexico, at 6:49 p.m. PDT (22:49 GMT). .
Starliner was launched into orbit last Thursday, powered by an Atlas V rocket provided by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Its main objective, a rendezvous with the ISS, was achieved despite the malfunction of four thrusters along the way.
A successful mission would allow the Starliner, whose development has been marred by delays and engineering setbacks, to become a secondary mode of transportation for travel between Earth and the ISS.
Since the resumption of crewed flights in 2020, NASA has had to call on Falcon 9 rockets and Crew Dragon capsules from Elon Musk and his private company SpaceX.
Previously, the only other option to reach the lab was via the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, an alternative that has become less attractive in the face of tensions over the war in Ukraine.
The stakes are also high for Boeing, as the Chicago-based company struggles to emerge from successive crises in its airliner business and space defense unit. The Starliner program alone cost the company nearly $600 million (562.59 million euros).
(Report Steve Gorman, French version Augustin Turpin, edited by Kate Entringer)
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