The Boeing Starliner finally plopped down in the New Mexico desert last week after spending three months in orbit. The beleaguered spacecraft suffered technical problems during its rendezvous with the International Space Station. It drastically prolonged the eight-day mission as engineers raced to identify the issue and fix a solution. Despite NASA allowing the Starliner to return, the space agency wasn’t willing to have astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams for their safety.
While Wilmore and Williams will wait until March 2025 to return to the surface on SpaceX Crew-9, the fallout from the troubled test will likely be felt for much longer. NASA foresaw potential problems with the Boeing spacecraft and double-booked the Starliner’s first official mission in August 2025 with SpaceX Crew-11. Let’s recap every step of the debacle that was the Boeing Crew Flight Test so far:
