Starliner Back Home!

 Starliner spacecraft which had autonomously started back from the International Space Station without crew members landed at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico at 12:01 am EDT (9:31 pm Saturday 7 September 2024, IST, 4:01 pm UTC). It had been at the Space Station for three months and is the first American-made orbital crew capsule designed to perform ground landing as a reusable spacecraft. Base heat shield of the spacecraft separated before landing to allow the six airbags to inflate and brace for a ground landing. Though called as 'airbags' they were actually filled with nitrogen. Three main parachutes were deployed for slowing down the uncrewed capsule. 

During the descent of the Starliner spacecraft, around 30,000 feet after atmospheric re-entry, forward heat shield separated to allow drogue parachutes to inflate and slow down the vehicle. Drogue parachute is also called a drag chute, and is designed for deployment from a rapidly moving object. That will decrease speed to provide control and stability and acts as a pilot parachute to deploy a larger parachute. Drogue parachutes separated about 45 seconds later, at around 8,000 feet and three larger main parachutes were deployed to slow down Starliner to 4 miles per hour. This was needed for air-bag assisted landing. Following the deployment of main parachutes, base heat shield moved off to expose six airbags which assisted a softlanding.

After landing technicians use equipment for checking any lingering hypergolic fluids before approaching the Starliner. Hypergolic fluids are toxic liquids which can react spontaneously and violently when they contact each other. They are used in different rocket and aircraft propulsion systems. Hypergolic fluids can provide hydraulic power and are used in orbiting satellites, manned spacecraft, military aircraft as well as deep space probes. After the initial safety check, technicians will open the hatch and unload time-critical cargo on board the spacecraft. Still later, the spacecraft will be transported to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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