NASA astronauts living on the international space station closed the hatch of Boeing's CST-100 starliner spacecraft at 3 p.m. EST on Tuesday, May 25 The unmanned spacecraft is scheduled to leave the space station and start its journey back to earth at 2:36 PM EST on Wednesday, May 25.
NASA and Boeing's goal is to land at 6:49 p.m. Eastern time and end the orbital flight test-2 (oft-2), ending a six-day mission to test the end-to-end capability of the starliner system.
The team in charge of the mission took the white sand spaceport at the white sand missile launch site of the U.S. Army in New Mexico as the main landing point, and there was an opportunity to back up the white sand on Friday, May 27. The spacecraft will return with more than 600 pounds of cargo, including reusable nitrogen and oxygen replenishment system tanks that provide breathing air for space station staff. The cans will be refurbished on earth and returned to the space station in future flights.
NASA TV, NASA apps and the agency's website will continue to provide live coverage of the upcoming oft-2 return on Wednesday, May 25. The specific schedule is as follows (all times may change according to task operation, and the following are Eastern time):
Wednesday, May 25
2 p.m. - TV coverage begins at 2:36 p.m. NASA will interrupt the report after the spacecraft exits the joint operation with the space station;
5:45 p.m. - start reporting the 6:05 p.m. off orbit combustion and 6:49 p.m. landing in the western United States;
9 p.m. - NASA TV held a return to earth press conference at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, attended by NASA commercial crew project manager Steve stich, NASA International Space Station Project Manager Joel Montalbano, NASA astronaut sunI Williams and Boeing vice president and project manager Mark Nappi.