New York, September 7th (Xinhua) -- The Boeing "Starliner" spacecraft, which encountered technical malfunctions, returned to Earth without carrying anyone in the early morning of the 7th and landed in the White Sands Spaceport area of New Mexico, USA.
NASA's live broadcast footage shows that the "StarCraft" departed from the International Space Station at around 18:04 Eastern Time on the 6th (6:04 Beijing Time on the 7th) and set off to return to Earth. After more than 5 hours of flight, the "interstellar passenger plane" successfully completed the derailment operation and then re entered the Earth's atmosphere. At around 00:01 Eastern Time on the 7th (12:01 Beijing Time on the 7th), the "Starship" landed in the White Sands Spaceport area of New Mexico.
The "Starship" carried American astronauts Wilmore and Williams into space on June 5th and arrived at the International Space Station on June 6th. This is the first manned test flight mission of an interstellar aircraft. The spacecraft was originally scheduled to depart from the space station and return to Earth on June 14th, but due to propulsion failures and helium leaks, the return time has been repeatedly postponed. For safety reasons, NASA has decided to allow the "Interstellar" spacecraft to depart from the International Space Station on September 6th and return to Earth without passengers, while the two astronauts will be transferred to the "Dragon" spacecraft of the United States Space Exploration Technology Company to return to Earth in February next year.
NASA plans to conduct a manned space launch of the Dragon spacecraft no earlier than September 24th, sending two astronauts from the United States and Russia to the space station. The original number of astronauts for this mission was 4, but it was later decided to reduce it to 2 in order to make room for the two astronauts who were stranded on the space station due to the malfunction of the "interstellar passenger plane". The 'interstellar passenger plane' must return to Earth before the launch of the 'Dragon' spacecraft to free up a docking port for the latter.
The first manned test flight mission of the "Interstellar Aircraft" is of great significance to Boeing. Since the retirement of the US space shuttle in 2011, the United States has vigorously developed commercial manned spaceflight. Boeing and SpaceX obtained a manned spacecraft project contract from NASA in 2014 to build the "Starliner" manned spacecraft and the manned version of the "Dragon" spacecraft, respectively, to transport American astronauts to the International Space Station. The "Dragon" spacecraft has carried out routine commercial manned space missions multiple times, while the "Interstellar Plane" project has been delayed several times due to technical issues.
NASA originally planned to conduct final certification for the StarCraft after its mission to perform routine commercial manned space missions and regularly transport astronauts to and from the space station. The malfunction of the first flight of the "StarCraft" undoubtedly dealt another heavy blow to Boeing, and it is currently unclear what the prospects of the "StarCraft" will be.