Topline
Boeing’s Starliner capsule—crewed by two astronauts—docked at the International Space Station on Thursday, after NASA and the aerospace firm said helium leaks were detected on the spacecraft during its flight, a crucial moment after years of delays caused by technical issues.
TKTK
Key Facts
Starliner docked at the ISS at about 1:34 p.m. EDT, Boeing confirmed, about 26 hours after the spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Helium leaks were detected on Starliner’s propulsion system during its flight to the station, which caused some of the spacecraft’s 28 thrusters to be unusable, NASA and Boeing said, though astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are safe inside and there are backup thrusters if needed.
Wilmore and Williams will test Starliner’s hatch opening and closing operations and later analyze how the spacecraft configures to the ISS, according to NASA.
The two astronauts will stay on the ISS for eight days with four American astronauts and three Russian cosmonauts before returning to Earth.
Boeing streamed Starliner’s docking process on X.
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Key Background
Boeing launched a crewed Starliner capsule after multiple delays over the last two years. The company successfully docked an unmanned Starliner capsule at the ISS in 2022, following a series of technical issues, including oxidizer valves in its propulsion system that became stuck. Three years earlier, Starliner suffered software glitches that caused the capsule to become stranded briefly in orbit. Boeing first attempted to launch a crewed Starliner capsule in February 2023, though it was delayed until April before being pushed back to May after engineers found new technical issues. That launch was halted two hours before launch.
Tangent
SpaceX launched its Starship rocket—the largest in the world—earlier on Thursday, marking the Elon Musk-owned company’s first successful reentry into Earth’s atmosphere with the spacecraft. The rocket landed in the Indian Ocean about an hour after launch and its Super Heavy boosters landed in the Gulf of Mexico just eight minutes after, a first for both. SpaceX has launched an unmanned Starship three previous times, including two previous attempts that exploded shortly after launch and a third attempt that was lost on reentry.
