Boeing Starliner capsule softly lands in New Mexico after dramatic mission

MELBOURNE, Fla. – Despite complications after launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Boeing's Starliner capsule softly touched down in New Mexico early Sunday, wrapping up a dramatic flight that saw mission managers scrambling to save the unmanned spacecraft and its mission.

After executing a de-orbit burn just after 7:20 a.m. EST and reentering Earth's atmosphere, Starliner's three main parachutes deployed over the Army's White Sands Missile Range. The 15-foot-wide capsule touched down at 7:58 a.m. with assistance from its inflatable airbags.

"Three parachutes, six airbags and a beautiful, soft landing," said astronaut Mike Fincke, who joined astronauts Chris Ferguson and Nicole Mann in New Mexico on Sunday morning. "Can't wait to try it out."

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The landing also marked the first time an American capsule touched down on land. Russia's Soyuz spacecraft is historically the most well-known capsule for land-based mission endings.

"We've got a lot of data on the launch and the orbital portion of the flight," Fincke said. "It was great data and we're going to analyze it and see if there's anything we need to fix for the next flight."

Starliner lifted off on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at 6:36 a.m. Friday and separated from the Centaur second stage about 15 minutes later. But a scheduled orbital insertion burn to "catch up" with the International Space Station didn't happen due to the spacecraft thinking it was at a different point in the mission, causing it to burn too much fuel.

Moving forward, Boeing has said the Mission Elapsed Timer, or MET, will have to be investigated and fixed. In total, the timer was about 11 hours off.

Had this flight been fully successful, NASA astronauts were scheduled to fly on the spacecraft sometime in the first half of 2020. A revised timeline for that mission has not yet been made clear, nor has there been an update on whether Boeing will need to refly this mission before the capsule is certified for crewed flight.

But despite its inability to arrive at the space station, Boeing said during a post-landing conference that Starliner achieved at least 80% of its test objectives when it comes to the amount of data gathered. That's thanks to milestones like launch, orbit, powering up and down systems, and the safe landing, all of which were crucial milestones.

"I think overall, this was a good test," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said after the capsule's touchdown, confirming again that if astronauts had been on board, they would have been safe. "We're going to get a lot of important information from this test that we're going to use to go forward in a meaningful way."

Starliner will eventually be taken back to Kennedy Space Center, its build site, for checkouts and refurbishment. If found safe, it will fly again with astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Josh Cassada on the program's first operational mission.

Both Boeing and SpaceX have designed and built spacecraft for NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which was established to return human spaceflight capabilities to the United States. Astronauts haven't launched from American soil since the end of the space shuttle program in July 2011.

Follow reporter Emre Kelly on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @EmreKelly.

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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Boeing Starliner landing: Capsule lands safely in New Mexico