NASA and Boeing will provide live coverage this morning of the landing of the company’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, on return from its Orbital Flight Test for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
Key Times (all times EST, all times approximate)
Hour/Min/Sec Events
-06:45:00 NASA TV coverage begins
-~07:00:00 Go/no go poll for the deorbit burn
-07:23:47 Deorbit burn
-07:26:00 Starliner separates from its service module
-07:53:00 Drogue parachute deploy (main chutes soon after)
-07:57:33 Landing
Landing will take place approximately one hour and six minutes before sunrise at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.
NASA and Boeing will host a postlanding news conference at 10 a.m. with:
- NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine
- Jim Chilton, senior vice president of Boeing’s Space and Launch Division
- Steve Stich, deputy manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
To participate in the postlanding news conference via phone bridge, media must contact the newsroom at NASA’s Johnson Space Center at 281-483-5111 no later than 9:45 a.m. The news conference will air live on NASA TV and the agency’s website.
The uncrewed Starliner spacecraft launched on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket Friday, Dec. 20, from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Though Starliner did not reach the planned orbit or dock to the space station as planned, Boeing still was able to complete a number of test objectives. Teams from NASA, Boeing and ULA worked quickly to ensure the spacecraft was in a stable orbit and preserved enough fuel for multiple landing opportunities.