Boeing’s Starliner Spacecraft Is Ready For Its Return To Earth

We are just about 24 hours away from the scheduled undocking of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. For weeks now teams have been busy adjusting the mission plan and flight profile knowing the vehicle will now return without a crew.

In just the last few days cargo has been loaded onto the spacecraft in addition to thorough inspections inside the vehicle. With these steps complete, today the hatch is set to be closed, and assuming everything goes as planned, won’t be opened until Starliner is back on Earth. Here I will go more in-depth into the last-minute departure activities, final milestones, an updated uncrewed reentry process, and more.

Credit:

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:32 - Closing The Hatch
3:38 - An Uncrewed Return

[dereks]

"Assuming everything goes as planned..." Why would they start going to plan now and ruin their record?

[simongreen]

Yosarrian's thrusters: the thrusters work perfectly as long they are never used. If the thrusters are used, they do not work.

[bengurion]

Looking forward to see another meteorite show

[kongcichan]

Did I hear that correctly? They won’t change the hardware but change the thrusters burst pattern so it won’t overheat?

[jxpat]

Who else thinks some part of the Starliner landing workflow will fail?

[RichTheNoun]

Like Benny Hill once said, why would you name an aircraft company with the sound an airplane makes when it hits the ground

[fw]

After Boeing has fleeced the American people for a decade I hope they never get a contract for anything space related ever again.

[thinkingofvenice]

If it once again has thruster issues and lands in the middle of some city, can someone other than Boeing rebuild your house?

[RichTheNoun]

1:23 My God, what did these people SEE?!?

[emonk]

as Arte Johnson would have said: "Very interesting"

[victorkrawchuk]

I predict that Starliner's undocking and return will be uneventful and anticlimactic. It seems that Boeing's engineers do have a decent understanding of the RCS thruster overheating issues, and have a plan to circumvent the problems using software and procedure updates. I wish them the best of luck. But, after the landing, where will we go from there...?

[SenatorBlutarsky]

Getting the popcorn popped... the beers chilled.... the lawn-chairs set.... a $6 Billion-dollar boondoggle ought to make quite a spectacular light show.... with all those little pieces burning-up in Earth's atmosphere

[doltsbane]

I'd be a lot more confident if Starliner's speaker system wasn't possessed by the ghost of Vladimir Komorov banging on the hull of his Soyuz 1 capsule.

[FrancisFjordCupola]

This video's recommendation was sandwiched between airplane crash investigation video's. Let's keep our fingers crossed. Glad NASA didn't populate the thing.

[SebastianWellsTL]

Can't say I am surprised this is how it ended up.

[richardpark]

"Boeing's Starliner Is Ready for Its Return to Earth"!? Are you kidding!? It was never ready to leave Earth!

[Hoopaball]

"Trashcan-Liner" seems more appropriate.

[electriccoconut]

Perhaps Boeing will have more mess to clean up. Looks like a hell of a lot of stuff cramped in there were was all this stored on the space station in the cupboard under the stairs. Saves taking it to the recycling centre. If it burns up.

[NonBinary_Star]

LIVESTREAMED!?! ohh boy ohh boy oohh boyy!🎉

[RechargeableLithium]

Corners and doors, kid, it's where Boeing gets you...

(With apologies to Miller.)