Boeing saved its new Starliner spaceship from disaster. Here's how the mission unfolded and what it could mean for NASA astronauts.

dmosher@businessinsider.com (Dave Mosher)
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing 4
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing 4

Boeing

Boeing and NASA officials seemed proud, and perhaps a little giddy, after the company's first new orbital-class spaceship, the CST-100 Starliner, landed with barely a scratch in New Mexico on Sunday.

"You look at the landing, it was an absolute bull's-eye. Better than, I think, anybody anticipated," Jim Bridenstine, NASA's administrator, said during a press conference that day. "That's good for the agency, it's good for Boeing, and it's good for the United States of America."

But just two days before, the autonomous spacecraft — which carried no people on its maiden flight — suffered from a critical timing error that, without intervention from mission control, likely would have ended with the loss of the uncrewed Starliner and its cargo of food and Christmas presents bound for the International Space Station.

More importantly, the Orbital Flight Test mission was designed to show NASA the spacecraft is safe to fly astronauts on a follow-up test flight, ostensibly planned for mid-2020.

"It's disappointing for us," Jim Chilton, the senior vice president of Boeing's Space and Launch division, said of the error just after launch on Friday.

Here's what happened during the historic mission and why both Boeing and NASA officials now, after landing "Calypso," as astronauts have named the space-worthy ship, seem surprisingly upbeat about its performance.

Boeing designed the CST-100 Starliner to fly up to seven passengers. NASA funded the work with a $4.2 billion contract.

A Boeing technician works on the Starliner crew test capsule inside the orbital processing facility at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida December 18, 2019. REUTERS/Steve Nesius
A Boeing technician works on the Starliner crew test capsule inside the orbital processing facility at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida December 18, 2019. REUTERS/Steve Nesius

Reuters

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The money comes from the Commercial Crew Program, which NASA started 2010. The goal: Have companies, not the US government, build new spaceships to reach the International Space Station.

international space station, iss
international space station, iss

NASA

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NASA desperately needs those commercial spaceships because it retired its fleet of space shuttles in July 2011.

space shuttle atlantis sts135 july 2011 copyright dave mosher
space shuttle atlantis sts135 july 2011 copyright dave mosher

Dave MosherEver since then, NASA has solely — and uncomfortably — relied on Russia to ferry US astronauts to and from orbit inside that nation's Soyuz spacecraft. A single round-trip ticket now costs NASA more than $80 million.

soyuz ms 11 rocket launch kazakhstan expedition 58 AP_18337431728260
soyuz ms 11 rocket launch kazakhstan expedition 58 AP_18337431728260

Dmitri Lovetsky/AP

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Help is on the way, though. Out of a dozen companies, Boeing and SpaceX made it through NASA's competition with two independent spaceship designs.

nasa astronauts commercial crew program august 2018 AP_18215575643268
nasa astronauts commercial crew program august 2018 AP_18215575643268

NASA via APBefore Boeing's Starliner vehicle can fly astronauts, though, NASA requires a series of test flights and demonstrations.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight test oft ula atlas v 5 rocket payload integration KSC 20191121 PH CSH02_0080_orig
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight test oft ula atlas v 5 rocket payload integration KSC 20191121 PH CSH02_0080_orig

Cory Huston/NASANASA requires Starliner to fly astronauts to safety in the unlikely event of a rocket-launch failure. So Boeing developed new engines ...

cst 100 starliner service module engine hot fire test aerojet rocketdyne
cst 100 starliner service module engine hot fire test aerojet rocketdyne

Aerojet Rocketdyne... And tested them on a full escape system in November. The test showed Starliner can automatically blast away from impending disaster.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight test oft abort launch KSC 20191104 PH JSC01_0002_orig
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight test oft abort launch KSC 20191104 PH JSC01_0002_orig

NASA JSC/BoeingThough the engines initially leaked, and the parachutes took years to perfect — such a system hadn't been used since the Apollo program decades ago — Boeing eventually persevered.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship parachute deployment test nasa commercial crew program ccp KSC 20180222 PH_NAS01_0005_orig
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship parachute deployment test nasa commercial crew program ccp KSC 20180222 PH_NAS01_0005_orig

NASA

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These and many other subsystems culminated in the first-ever orbital launch of a Starliner at 6:36 a.m. ET on December 20.

The Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, atop a ULA Atlas V rocket, lifts off for an uncrewed Orbital Flight Test to the International Space Station from launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida December 20, 2019. REUTERS/Thom Baur
The Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, atop a ULA Atlas V rocket, lifts off for an uncrewed Orbital Flight Test to the International Space Station from launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida December 20, 2019. REUTERS/Thom Baur

Reuters

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Nobody was inside except a mannequin named Rosie. There was also some food, Christmas presents, and other cargo for astronauts aboard the space station.

This Nov. 1, 2019 photo provided by Boeing shows Rosie the astronaut test dummy positioned in the space capsule at Kennedy Space Center. The test dummy will be riding to the space station on Boeing’s new Starliner capsule next month, in the first test flight. (Boeing via AP)
This Nov. 1, 2019 photo provided by Boeing shows Rosie the astronaut test dummy positioned in the space capsule at Kennedy Space Center. The test dummy will be riding to the space station on Boeing’s new Starliner capsule next month, in the first test flight. (Boeing via AP)

Associated Press

Source: NASA

The spaceship rode toward space atop an Atlas V rocket, built by United Launch Alliance. It lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight tst oft launch pad cape canaveral florida
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight tst oft launch pad cape canaveral florida

NASA

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To viewers of a NASA TV livestream, the flight seemed to be smoothly for more than half an hour.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing 1
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing 1

Boeing

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The Starliner separated from the Atlas V after about 15 minutes.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing 2
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing 2

Boeing

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But mission control knew something was wrong shortly after that. About 31 minutes into the mission, Starliner was supposed to have automatically fired its engines to set a course for the space station — but it never did.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing 3
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing 3

Boeing

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When the rocket disconnected from the Starliner, the ship's clock was 11 hours too far ahead. This caused the ship's autonomous navigation system to fire small reaction-control thrusters and adjust its position in space —for a phase of the mission it had not yet reached.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing reaction control system rcs thrusters
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing reaction control system rcs thrusters

Boeing

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And possibly because Starliner wasn't in the right position, it had trouble connecting with NASA satellites: Mission Control couldn't immediately override the autonomous system and tell the ship to fire its main engines for orbit.

nasa tracking data relay satellite tdrs m 13
nasa tracking data relay satellite tdrs m 13

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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As a result, the Starliner burned through about 25% of its fuel before Mission Control finally took remote-control of the ship. There wasn't enough fuel to reach the space station — only rescue the ship into a stable orbit and prevent it from crashing to Earth.

boeing cst 100 starliner illustration space earth 24329983573_943fef2be5_k
boeing cst 100 starliner illustration space earth 24329983573_943fef2be5_k

Boeing

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It was a tense moment for everyone on the mission, though officials said human pilots could have made a big difference. "Had we had an astronaut on board, we very well may be at the International Space Station right now," Bridenstine said on Sunday.

nasa administrator jim bridenstine beoing cst 100 starliner orbital flight test post launch press briefing kennedy space center florida 2019 12 20T160344Z_91047573_HP1EFCK18M877_RTRMADP_3_SPACE EXPLORATION BOEING.JPG
nasa administrator jim bridenstine beoing cst 100 starliner orbital flight test post launch press briefing kennedy space center florida 2019 12 20T160344Z_91047573_HP1EFCK18M877_RTRMADP_3_SPACE EXPLORATION BOEING.JPG

Joe Skipper/Reuters

Source: NASA via YouTube

That's because — according to NASA managers, Boeing officials, and astronauts themselves — a person would have seen the ship had missed a critical engine burn.

boeing commercial crew astronauts mann fincke williams cassada boe cst 100 starliner NHQ201912180016_orig
boeing commercial crew astronauts mann fincke williams cassada boe cst 100 starliner NHQ201912180016_orig

Joel Kowsky/NASAAt that point, someone would have used Starliner's manual controls to bypass the autopilot and take over the flight.

sunita williams control panel simulator screens bcst 100 starliner boeing 26573068352_f87421cc90_k
sunita williams control panel simulator screens bcst 100 starliner boeing 26573068352_f87421cc90_k

NASA/Dimitri GerondidakisSo while the Starliner never reached its target destination, Christmas presents and all, and did not dock with the ISS ...

boeing cst 100 starliner docking space station illustration space earth 24062224484_39cd846e51_k
boeing cst 100 starliner docking space station illustration space earth 24062224484_39cd846e51_k

Boeing... Everyone was happy the spaceship was saved.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight tst oft cape canaveral launch 2019 12 20T000000Z_2040578778_HP1EFCK0Y1E6R_RTRMADP_3_SPACE EXPLORATION BOEING.JPG
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight tst oft cape canaveral launch 2019 12 20T000000Z_2040578778_HP1EFCK0Y1E6R_RTRMADP_3_SPACE EXPLORATION BOEING.JPG

Joe Skipper/Reuters"I'd like to express Boeing's regrets to the ISS crew to whom we did not bring the Christmas presents," Boeing's Chilton said. "That's not cool. We own it."

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp press conference jim chilton KSC 20191220 PH KLS02_0022_orig
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp press conference jim chilton KSC 20191220 PH KLS02_0022_orig

Kim Shiflett/NASA

Source: NASA via YouTube

Starliner ended up orbiting Earth for about two days instead of a week. Along the way, Boeing tested out as many systems as possible. Chilton said on Sunday that the mission probably achieved about 85-90% of its objectives for NASA.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing 4
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing 4

Boeing

Source: NASA via YouTube

Early Sunday morning, the Starliner shed its service module and orbital thrusters.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing 5
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing 5

BoeingThis allowed the space capsule to turn its heat shield toward Earth's atmosphere, absorb and deflect the heat of reentry, and safely return to the planet.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing 6
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing 6

BoeingThe capsule deployed its parachutes over NASA's White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, popped off its heat shield ...

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight test oft landing white sands new mexico 49258415281_134e290302_o
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight test oft landing white sands new mexico 49258415281_134e290302_o

Aubrey Gemignani/NASA... And blew up impact-absorbing airbags before landing in the desert.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing 7
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp illustration rendering launch orbit landing 7

BoeingThe space capsule landed gently on the sandy turf just before dawn on Sunday.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight test oft landing white sands new mexico 49258250868_0e5795b4a9_3k
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight test oft landing white sands new mexico 49258250868_0e5795b4a9_3k

Bill Ingalls/NASAGround crews made of Boeing, NASA, and US Army personnel had trained for months for this moment and were ready to recover the ship.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp test recovery new mexico NHQ201909110027_orig
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp test recovery new mexico NHQ201909110027_orig

Bill Ingalls/NASAAnd because the ship landed right where it was supposed to, the recovery team reached the Starliner in minutes.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight test oft landing white sands new mexico
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight test oft landing white sands new mexico

Aubrey Gemignani/NASA"When we look at how the launch vehicle, the Atlas V and Starliner, perform, it's an incredibly good design. We didn't see any major problems," Steve Stich, the deputy manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said during Sunday's press briefing.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight test oft landing white sands new mexico 49258377728_352dee397a_o
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight test oft landing white sands new mexico 49258377728_352dee397a_o

Bill Ingalls/NASA

Source: NASA via YouTube

Recovery of the Starliner capsule is crucial: Boeing plans to launch and reuse it many times with refurbishment.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight test oft landing white sands new mexico 49258470013_cf8bfcccae_o
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight test oft landing white sands new mexico 49258470013_cf8bfcccae_o

Bill Ingalls/NASAThe Starliner that launched over the weekend won't be the first to fly people. But its supposed to be refurbished and fly NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Josh Cassada, perhaps sometime next year.

boeing commercial crew astronauts williams cassada cst 100 starliner NHQ201912190009_orig
boeing commercial crew astronauts williams cassada cst 100 starliner NHQ201912190009_orig

Joel Kowsky/NASAWilliams named the recovered Starliner spaceship "Calypso" after the ship of famed explorer Jacques Cousteau.

jacques cousteau research vessel rv calypso ship boat montreal 1980
jacques cousteau research vessel rv calypso ship boat montreal 1980

René Beauchamp (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Source: NASA

NASA wouldn't say if Boeing needs to repeat an uncrewed Starliner mission or proceed to first-ever mission with astronauts. Bridenstine would only say it could take months to review all of the mission's data and arrive at a decision.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp press conference administrator jim bridenstine
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp press conference administrator jim bridenstine

Joel Kowsky/NASA

Source: NASA via YouTube

Whatever the case, and perhaps even at a major cost to Boeing, Chilton said the company would do whatever it takes to fly astronauts — including another uncrewed test. "We're in. Simple as that," he said during a teleconference on Saturday.

boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight test oft crawler truck rollout KSC 20191121 PH CSH01_0007_orig
boeing cst 100 starliner spaceship nasa commercial crew program ccp orbital flight test oft crawler truck rollout KSC 20191121 PH CSH01_0007_orig

Cory Huston/NASA

Source: NASA

NASA says there is no race to resurrect human spaceflight capabilities in the US, but SpaceX could be the very first to fly astronauts.

NASA SpaceX Boeing astronaut cst 100 starliner crew dragon spaceships spacecraft american flag space race illustration business insider shayanne gal 4x3
NASA SpaceX Boeing astronaut cst 100 starliner crew dragon spaceships spacecraft american flag space race illustration business insider shayanne gal 4x3

NASA/Kennedy Space Center (via Flickr); Boeing; Shayanne Gal/Business InsiderSpaceX's Crew Dragon already completed its orbital flight and docking test, called Demo-1. That space capsule later exploded during a test, though.

spacex crew dragon spaceship nasa commercial crew program illustration 42878298755_a9670c6596_o
spacex crew dragon spaceship nasa commercial crew program illustration 42878298755_a9670c6596_o

Kennedy Space Center/SpaceX via Flickr

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Despite the setback, SpaceX has made up for lost time, completed the same test, and is planning a launch-abort test in January. After that, NASA may decide SpaceX is ready to launch astronauts as soon as Spring 2020.

crew dragon v2 capsule spacecraft spacex flickr 24159153709_e480e05061_k
crew dragon v2 capsule spacecraft spacex flickr 24159153709_e480e05061_k

SpaceX/Flickr (public domain)

Source: NASA

Both companies may ultimately fly astronauts, giving NASA two ways, as Bridenstine often likes to say, to fly American astronauts from American soil on American rockets for the first time in nearly a decade.

victor glover nasa astronauts commercial crew program august 2018 AP_18215607610378
victor glover nasa astronauts commercial crew program august 2018 AP_18215607610378

David J. Phillip/AP

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