Boeing's Starliner spacecraft landed in New Mexico, ushering in a new era of US human spaceflight. But let's take a step back.
The launch
On Friday 20 May, at 00:54:47 (Italian time) the Atlas V N22 took off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base.
About 15 minutes after launch, the Centaur second stage released the spacecraft in a suborbital trajectory.
Starliner herself started her engines a few minutes later to successfully carry out the entry into orbit maneuver.
The arrival at the station
Just over 24 hours after take-off, at 02:28 on May 21, the Starliner spacecraft docked at the International Space Station. During the approach, various tests were carried out, including those of abortion of the rendezvous and those of the manual control of the process by the crew of the station.
Departure from the station
After passing five-fours docked at the ISS, the crew closed the spacecraft hatch at 9pm on Tuesday 24 May.
The next day, at 8:36 pm, the Boeing spacecraft left the station. Before leaving the Approach Ellipsoid, that is the imaginary ellipsoid around the ISS used for the approaching vehicles, the Starliner carried out a flyaround around the orbiting laboratory and then carried out an evacuation maneuver.
The return to Earth
About 44 minutes before landing, the spacecraft started the service module engines for the last time. Four minutes later the crew module separated from the service module and the spacecraft entered the re-entry interface.
Four minutes after landing, Starliner released the two Drogue parachutes, two small parachutes that slow down the spacecraft before opening the main ones about 1 minute later.
At 900m, the Starliner inflated its airbags designed to cushion the initial landing forces.
At 00:49 the spacecraft landed safely at the White Sands Missile Range, a US military facility in the New Mexico desert.
The success of this mission determined Boeing's ability to launch the Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station. Once the review of the data collected has been completed, the Boeing, NASA and ULA teams will proceed to launch the test mission with humans. The launch date for this latest mission has not yet been announced, a forecast indicates the end of 2022 as a probable date.
The United States is now able, for the first time, to launch humans into low Earth orbit on two different spacecraft (Starliner and Crew Dragon).