TechCrunch Space: The Starliner saga is coming to an end — for now

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. NASA leadership has made its decision: Starliner will return to Earth — empty. More on that below.

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After months of data analysis and internal deliberations, NASA leadership announced Saturday that Starliner will return to Earth in September without a crew. Meanwhile, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams will remain on the International Space Station until February 2025, when they will return on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft as part of the Crew-9 mission.

“Space flight is risky, even when it is the safest and most routine,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “A test flight, by nature, is neither safe nor routine. The decision to keep Butch and Suni at the International Space Station and return Boeing’s Starliner uncrewed is a result of our commitment to safety: our core value and our pole star.”

As the global appetite for orbital launches continues to grow, competition among new and old space companies to build bigger and better launch vehicles continues to heat up. If I don’t know, here’s my overview of the medium, heavy, and ultra-heavy lift rocket landscape, from vehicles currently in operation to rockets yet to fly.

NASA’s spacecraft Voyager 2 made its closest approach to Saturn on Aug. 26, 1981, at a distance of just 63,000 miles. Voyager 2 had a pretty impressive mission: The tiny spacecraft flew past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, becoming the second spacecraft to enter interstellar space, or the space between stars. By the time it finished observations in the Saturn system on Sept. 28, the spacecraft had sent back 16,000 images of the planet and the space around it.