The Starliner is scheduled to undock from the International Space Station and make its way back to Earth at 6:04PM Eastern time on September 6 at the earliest, with a planned landing at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico around 12:03AM ET on September 7 using parachutes and inflated airbags for descent. Ground teams at Starliner Mission Control in Houston and Boeing Mission Control Center in Florida can control the spacecraft remotely if needed, but this will be an uncrewed, fully autonomous flight for the Starliner. NASA recently announced that astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who flew to the ISS aboard the Starliner, will be coming home on a SpaceX Crew Dragon instead due to uncertainties around the Starliner’s thrusters. The space agency will cover Starliner’s return live on NASA+ and its platforms, while the SpaceX Crew-9 mission, replacing Boeing’s vehicle on the ISS, is scheduled to launch no earlier than September 24 with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
