Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft landed in a New Mexico desert late on Friday, months after its original departure date and without the two astronauts it carried when it launched in early June.
Starliner returned to Earth seemingly without a hitch, a Nasa live stream showed, nailing the critical final phase of its mission.
The spacecraft re-entered Earth’s atmosphere around 11pm ET at orbital speeds of roughly 27,400km/h (17,025mph). About 45 minutes later, it deployed a series of parachutes to slow its descent and inflated a set of airbags moments before touching down at the White Sands Space Harbor, an arid desert in New Mexico.
They certainly won’t be bored. Astronauts time on the ISS is a precious resource, and work will have been found for them even if they weren’t expected to be there
I think I read somewhere, but I’d have to go track it down, that the ISS was catching up on a whole lot of back-logged experiments with their unexpected addition to the team.