Watch Starliner return home empty on Friday – but it may have gremlins

The "not stranded" astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) won't have an emergency ride home after Friday. NASA says that the uncrewed Starliner capsule will undock and return to Earth autonomously. Oh, and it might be 'haunted.'

Like a car wreck that gets covered in sap from the tree it hit and then is colonized by small furry creatures, the Starliner saga is one of those embarrassing incidents that insists on unfolding in slow motion.

It was bad enough when NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams saw their eight-day stay on the orbital lab turn into eight months after five thrusters malfunctioned shortly after liftoff on June 5, 2024. This was followed by weeks of delays, uncertainty, and official silence as NASA and Boeing, builder and operator of Starliner, debated whether it was safe for Wilmore and Williams to return aboard the crippled spacecraft.

The official word now is that the pair will remain aboard the ISS until February when they will return aboard a SpaceX Dragon, which is not going to look good on Boeing's prospectus. The next problem is, what to do with Starliner itself? It couldn't remain docked with the station indefinitely. Even if the craft's systems could be successfully mothballed and made safe, it would leave the lab with one less very valuable parking spot for visiting ships.

In addition, Boeing engineers very much want the capsule back for analysis to find out what went wrong. Unfortunately, without a crew, that became a bit of a head scratcher. Never mind the wonky thrusters. The computer wasn't programmed for autonomous flight, so that meant a lot of new coding and software updates from mission control back on Earth.

Now, NASA plans to undock Starliner at 6:04 pm EDT on Friday, September 6, 2024. The uncrewed capsule will detach itself from the station and make a controlled reentry to land at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico – at least, that's the plan.

That sounds very simple, but it still isn't certain whether Starliner will be able to undock itself without damaging or, worse, jamming the docking mechanism. Even if it does separate successfully, there's still the danger that another thruster failure could occur, sending the craft into a tumble and an uncontrolled reentry to either burn up or land who knows where.

Added on top of this is a report that astronaut Wilmore has been hearing strange noises coming from Starliner that sound like sonar pings.

In a radio conversation with Mission Control in Houston, Wilmore said, "I've got a question about Starliner. There's a strange noise coming through the speaker ... I don't know what's making it."

The cause of these odd pings is still unknown. The most likely scenario is that it's some sort of system interference between the spacecraft and the station and probably benign.

Or Starliner has gremlins, which could explain a lot.

Either way, if you want to watch the undocking, live streaming is available on Friday beginning at 5:45 pm EDT on NASA+, the NASA App, YouTube, and NASA TV. The landing is scheduled for 12:03 am on September 7.

Source: NASA