Starliner launched 1 year ago on ill-fated voyage: Look back at mission's biggest moments

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One year ago, two experienced NASA astronauts boarded an experimental Boeing spacecraft known as the Starliner for a short voyage to orbit and back.

If you followed the Starliner saga as a few days stretched into months, you likely remember how this story ends.

Boeing's vehicle, which it is developing for NASA to make trips to and from the International Space Station, attained a certain degree of notoriety. And the astronauts who crewed the spacecraft for its maiden human flight test are now as close to being household names as astronauts can get.

For 286 days, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams made their home among the stars as unexpected extended crew members of the space station. Meanwhile, back on Earth, their predicament involved intricate planning to get them home and ‒ when President Donald Trump and the world's richest man Elon Musk chimed in ‒ no small amount of finger-pointing.

For their part, the astronauts, who have long since returned to Earth, have regularly spoken about relishing the extra time in the cosmos – including in an exclusive interview in January with Paste BN. Wilmore and Williams have also downplayed their extended mission as just part of the job.

On the one-year anniversary of the Starliner's doomed launch, here's a look back at the biggest moments of a now-infamous spaceflight mission that captured the world's attention.

Boeing Starliner launches from Florida on crewed test

As the two astronauts selected for the Starliner's first crewed flight test, Wilmore and Williams launched June 5, 2024, on a mission to test a vehicle intended to one day join the SpaceX Dragon in transporting NASA astronauts to orbit.

The Starliner capsule rode to orbit atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida. The highly anticipated liftoff came after several delays over the course of about a month due to troubles detected with the spacecraft, including issues with a valve in the rocket's upper stage.

Starliner crew reaches International Space Station

Wilmore and Williams reached the International Space Station the next day, June 6, 2024, where they were expected to remain for about 10 days before returning home.

But when they made it to the orbital outpost, engineers discovered a slew of helium leaks and problems with the craft's propulsion system that for months hampered Starliner's return to Earth.

NASA opts to send Starliner back without crew

Williams and Wimore's fate remained uncertain for months as NASA and Boeing deliberated on how best to get them home.

That decision came Aug. 24, 2024 when NASA officials announced that the Starliner wasn't safe enough to crew, and would instead undock empty and return to Earth. The move, which dealt a blow to Boeing's hopes of getting the vehicle certified for regular space travel, would also free up a docking port at the station for the spacecraft now tasked with bringing Wilmore and Williams back.

Under NASA's plan, the space agency selected a SpaceX Dragon bound the following month for the space station to transport Williams and Wilmore home. And to avoid having the station be understaffed, NASA opted to keep Williams and Wilmore at the station a few extra months rather than launch an emergency mission to return them to Earth.

Empty Starliner undocks, lands in New Mexico

The empty Boeing Starliner then undocked Sept. 6 and made its way back to Earth for a parachute-assisted landing in the New Mexico desert.

At the time, Boeing had plenty of work ahead to prepare the vehicle for routine spaceflight – including more ground tests and potential modifications to remedy its propulsion system woes. Starliner's future as a second operational vehicle for NASA to transport crews and cargo to the space station remains unclear, though the space agency appears to still be working with Boeing to make the vehicle operational.

SpaceX Crew-9 mission reaches ISS

On Sept. 28, 2024, NASA launched the SpaceX Crew-9 mission as planned, but with one crucial change: Just two astronauts, Nick Hague of NASA and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, headed to the space station instead of four to leave two empty seats on their vehicle reserved for Wilmore and Williams. 

The pair arrived a day after getting off the ground on a spacecraft. But Wilmore and Williams didn't return with them right away.

Instead, the Starliner astronauts were folded into the Crew-9 mission, and Williams even became commander of Expedition 72 – overseeing all of the spacefarers living and working at the space station. The plan then became Williams and Wilmore to return with Crew-9 in 2025 once Hague and Gorbunov completed their mission.

Suni Williams makes history on spacewalk

If it weren't for the extended mission, Williams would not have been able to set a record Jan. 30 during her ninth-ever spacewalk.

After she and Wilmore spent more than six hours venturing outside the space station, Williams has now spent a cumulative 62 hours and 6 minutes in the vacuum of space – more than any other woman in the world. Only three other people in the world have spent more cumulative time on spacewalks than Williams.

President Donald Trump, Elon Musk weigh in on Starliner saga

After taking office in January, President Donald Trump weighed in several times on the Starliner mission, the delay of which he blamed on the Biden administration. He and billionaire ally Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, began characterizing the vehicle's crew as being "abandoned" or "stuck" in space – an assertion Wilmore and Williams have oft refuted.

Trump also claimed that it was he who "authorized" Musk to retrieve the astronauts, despite the return plan being in place before he was elected. However, Trump did appear to have had an influence over NASA's decision to accelerate by about two weeks the launch of a mission that replaced Crew-9.

SpaceX Crew-10 launches for International Space Station

That mission, unsurprisingly known as Crew-10, launched March 14 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

Crew-10 included a full contingent of four spacefarers, including mission commander Anne McClain of NASA, NASA pilot Nichole Ayers and two mission specialists from other space agencies: Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.

After more than 28 hours traveling through orbit, Crew-10 reached the space station late March 15 – a critical step in setting the stage for Wilmore and Williams to embark on their long-awaited return trip.

Starliner astronauts undock with Crew-9

Before the outgoing astronauts departed the station, they spent a few days helping the new arrivals familiarize themselves with the orbital laboratory and station operations during a handover period.

Wilmore and Williams then boarded the Dragon with Hague and Gorbunov and undocked March 18 from the ISS's Harmony module, a port and passageway onto the station. 

Dragon carrying Starliner crew, Crew-9 lands off Florida coast

About 17 hours later, the SpaceX Dragon vehicle – charred from its journey through Earth's atmosphere – deployed parachutes for a dramatic water landing March 19 off the coast of Florida.

SpaceX teams then raced to retrieve the floating spacecraft and its crew of four, helping secure the Dragon and hoist it onto a recovery vessel. Once the Dragon was firmly in place on the ship's main deck, teams cut into the vehicle's side hatch to help Williams, Wilmore, Hague and Gorbunov exit.

As commentators explained during NASA's livestream, the astronauts were placed onto stretchers – standard protocol after long-duration spaceflights – and taken to receive medical examinations. Once cleared, the four astronauts were taken on a short helicopter ride to board an airplane for a flight to NASA's headquarters in Houston, where they began their recovery.

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the Paste BN Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com