"We wish it would have been the way we had planned it," Starliner returns home without crew

Airbags deployed. The main parachutes opened. Moments later, Starliner plopped safely onto the ground of the New Mexico desert. The beleaguered Boeing spacecraft's three-month odyssey was over . But its crew remains up on the International Space Station and Boeing has a lot of work ahead to rebuild confidence.

"We're really excited to have Calypso back on the ground," said Steve Stich, manager of the Commercial Crew Program. "You know, Suni told the ground team, ' You've got this. Bring Calypso back' . And that's what they did tonight."

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, who flew to the International Space Station onboard Starliner in June , had watched earlier as their ride, named "Calypso," blazed through the atmosphere without them − live cameras from the International Space Station showing the spacecraft heading back to Earth during the final 10 minutes of its decent. Now, the two astronauts will remain onboard the space station until February, returning home with Crew-9 on a Dragon, the spacecraft built by Boeing's competitor, SpaceX.

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"All of us fell happy about the successful landing, but then there's a piece of us, all of us, that we wish it would have been the way we had planned it," said Stich.

He told journalists at the post-landing briefing early Saturday that NASA did not have a way to put the data available into a model that could prove the spacecraft would perform successfully on its return flight − and therefore could not take the risk. "We planned to have the mission land with Butch and Suni onboard," he said.

Starliner touched down at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time at the White Sands Space Harbor at the U.S. Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

"It's important to remember, this was a test mission," said NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator Joel Montalbano, during the opening of the post-landing briefing. "You know, we did learn a lot."

Starliner's thrusters reman focus of study for Boeing

While Starliner's thrusters did not fail off as feared during the reentry burn, two thrusters exceeded a higher than normal temperature range − which is believed to be the reason for the malfunctions seen during docking to the space station back in June. Teams will look at this data in detail and work towards a solution for Starliner-1.

There was an additional issue with propulsion observed during the landing.

"There's 12 thrusters, and one of the up-firing thrusters did not perform at all. We hot fired it twice, and we used two different methods to talk to it ... and we never saw any chamber pressure or any pulses there," Stich said.

These are different than the service module thrusters, which had been the cause of the investigation into Starliner's performance and the reason why it came home without its astronauts. Stich described these others as thrusters with a model propellant system. It consists of a valve that opens, allowing propellant to flow across a bed, which creates thrust. Fortunately, there was backup.

Stich noted another issue, which was the loss of signal in Starliner's GPS system. This system determines the velocity and orientation of the spacecraft as it returns to Earth.

"We had great performance from the GNC system, the guidance navigation control, the Vesta system," Stich added. Stich said that the helium leaks previously seen were also checked, and that sufficient helium remained.

Overall, Stich said "Starliner did really well today."

"On the NASA team and the Boeing team, they've put a lot of heart and soul into this mission over many years, and it's a testament to those people that we got the vehicle back safely today," he said.

While the service module which contained the malfunctioning thrusters was jettisoned upon reentry, the investigation into Starliner's issues will continue as teams analyze data from the spacecraft. The service module is located beneath the spacecraft, and no longer needed during reentry so it must be jettisoned to expose the heat shield. It is the heat shield which protects the spacecraft from the high temperatures during re-entry.

While an exact date is not known, Starliner is expected to return to Kennedy Space Center in the coming weeks.

Boeing focused on next steps for the program

Boeing officials were not present at the post landing briefing.

But in an email statement to FLORIDA TODAY, Boeing's Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager for Boeing's Commercial Crew Program, said, "I want to recognize the work the Starliner teams did to ensure a successful and safe undocking, deorbit, re-entry and landing. We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program."

Starliner and NASA's Commercial Crew Program

The decision to not fly crew back on Starliner was a major blow to Boeing and a setback to NASA's plans to have two American options to fly crew into space. Boeing received a fixed contract for $4.82 billion in 2014 to develop Starliner to fly NASA astronauts. Meanwhile SpaceX received a contract for $3.14 billion, and has successfully flown eight NASA missions and multiple private crews with their Dragon spacecraft.

Since the contract with Boeing is fixed, all additional testing to address concerns about Starliner will be on Boeing's dime. For NASA, it means they will have to remain dependent solely on SpaceX for now.

Stich mentioned that Starliner-1 is tentatively set for the second half of 2025, yet a lot of work needs to be done before that crewed Starliner flight.

Data will be taken from this test flight and run through models on the ground. NASA officials expressed confidence solutions will be found and that Starliner will fly a crew to the space station.

"It was a great day for the Commercial Crew Program and also for Boeing," Stich said as he closed his remarks.

What is next for the Starliner astronauts?

Remaining onboard the space station, Williams and Wilmore will be joining the Crew-9 expedition − and returning with them in February of 2025.

The decision not to risk flying Williams and Wilmore home on Starliner created another issue for NASA, as the Dragon is only certified to carry four astronauts.

NASA had already named its four-person Crew-9 so the agency had to cut two crew members from the original Crew-9 team: NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson. They will instead be assigned to a future flight to the space station.

NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will launch to the space station on a SpaceX Dragon no earlier than September 24, bringing along a SpaceX suit for Wilmore. There is already a spare SpaceX suit onboard the space station which happens to fit Williams.

With the Starliner and Dragon being two different spacecrafts from two separate companies, the Boeing spacesuits are not compatible with the SpaceX Dragon. The Boeing spacesuits were returned to Earth on Starliner Saturday.

Williams and Wilmore had initially intended to spend just about a week in space but now it won't be February until they're back. Both have flown previous NASA missions and as part of the Crew-9 mission, NASA said they may even get to do a spacewalk.

NASA has stated that Williams and Wilmore continue to remain healthy, noting that astronauts have stayed onboard the space station for up to a year with little impact to health. When the two astronauts return in February, they will have been in space for over eight months.

Brooke Edwards is a Space Reporter for Florida Today. Contact her at bedwards@floridatoday.com or on X: @brookeofstars .

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: "We wish it would have been the way we had planned it," Starliner returns home without crew