Boeing Starliner spacecraft has successfully landed in the New Mexico desert. The capsule traveled back to Earth from the International Space Station without its crew. It had developed technical problems, including helium leaks shortly after its original launch. So NASA decided it would be safer to leave the two astronauts on board the ISS. Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams will return to Earth in February in a SpaceX capsule after they'll have spent eight months in orbit. Nasa says both Both of them are in good spirits. Well, we heard from NASA a short while ago, and they told us more about the mission.

I'm happy to report Starliner did really well today in the undock, the orbit, and landing sequence. We used the NASA docking system for the second time on the mission to undock from the space station. That system performed really well. It's a derivative system that we use for Orion down the road, so it was good to pave the way for Orion as well. The spacecraft executed a nominal breakout sequence. The first time we've used that to back away from the station, we backed out to about 5 meters and then did a series of about 12 burns using the service module forward jets. Then we opened After that sequence of maneuvers, we ended up opening at about 22 kilometers per rev away from the space station. All those thrusters did really well through that SEP sequence, no problems at all.

Well, our science editor, Rebecca Morrell, has up the outcome of the mission.

They did deem it a safe and successful landing. There were a few hitches with the spacecraft on the way down. They had a few issues with some of the thrusters, which they experienced problems with the thrusters on the way up. That's what caused this whole decision to bring back the spacecraft without anyone in it. But on the whole, I think they're pretty happy with the landing. But it's been interesting just been hearing them saying just now, actually, before I came downstairs, that it's a bit bittersweet, really, because they really wanted this spacecraft to be bringing home Butch, Wilmore, and Sonny Williams, their astronauts, and it hasn't his gun pack empty. They've been working on it for many years, so they're glad it's come back. They're glad it's back safe and sound and in one piece. But it was a test flight, and it was supposed to be the first test flight with astronauts, and it hasn't. It's completed its test flights, but just not the with astronauts bit of that.

Indeed. Now, we were talking earlier, I was speaking to a former NASA astronaut, and a question that many of our viewers would have is, how will Butch and Sunny be in the International Space Center? Because they're staying far longer than they had land. What contingencies are in place? Nasa says they're in good spirits, of course, but in terms of kits and what they need, what will they have up there?

Yeah, it was supposed to be an eight-day mission, and seeing as they're now coming back next February, it's going to be eight in months. I mean, that is a really long extension to your stay in space. But from all the images we've seen and from what NASA says, they seem to be pretty happy up there. I mean, in terms of their gear, when they went for eight days, they didn't bring that much stuff with them. But we do know that NASA has sent up several cargo missions with specific crew items, they're called. But I think that means things like clothing, underwear, stuff like that, all the stuff you need for that extended stay. And now it's a longer-duration mission. They're having do things like the daily exercise regime, so you don't lose bone density and muscle weakness in that weightless environment. They're taking part in the science experiments up there because, of course, this is a floating... It's an orbiting laboratory, so loads of science going on there all the time. So really, they're settling in, I guess, which they have to because their lift ride has gone home now. They've got to wait for their quite a while for the next one to come by.

This is a layperson's question, but who else will be up at the International Space Center with them?

At the Space Station, there are quite a few people up there at the moment, lots of different astronauts. People come and go all the time. I mean, what's quite interesting, actually, is four astronauts were supposed to be heading up in September on a SpaceX crew Dragon, but that is now going to be two astronauts. Astronauts. So it's one from NASA and one from Russia. They're going to be heading up to the International Space Station. And the reason why two astronauts are staying behind on Earth is so they've got the empty seats, basically. So when their mission comes to its end in February, Butch and Sunny can take their places in the ride home. So there's lots of complicated scheduling. Lots of people said, why have they got to wait so long if there are spacecraft coming and going to the space station all the time? But the scheduling up there is incredibly complicated because there's a limited number of spaces for astronauts up on the space station. You've always got to make sure you've got enough spacecraft there to take the astronauts home if there was a real emergency situation. So there are all of these factors that have come in trying to reorganize this mission.

As we mentioned just then, I've been speaking to former NASA astronaut, Dottie Metcalf-Lindenberger.

Obviously, they personally do not take all their gear up. A lot of gear is prepositioned or will come up throughout a flight. And there will be adjustments made as the next SpaceX vehicle will only have two crew members. So you could potentially also add additional things there that they may need. But there's There's always enough in space for astronauts. We actually don't need as much as we think we do on Earth because you don't really get dirty. I mean, you do sweat. There's other things like that, of course, but there's always food available. They had already planned for the team that would be coming up on the SpaceX crew to have four, so there'll be plenty of food to go around. The clothing part isn't as big of an issue. A lot of us wear general sizes, and you can make things stretch quite far in space. That's part of this great part, too, of the two crew members up there, both Sunny and Butch. Like I said, they've both been commanders. They've done many things here on Earth where you don't need a lot of stuff. I just know that they'll be adding and contributing greatly to the science and experiments while being up there.

I'm happy to ask you.I'm sure that the last thing they're worried about is close.

It's really interesting, though, isn't it? Because it's an insight that a lot of us just can't understand or relate to. But what's the longest time that you were at the International Space Station for?

I was a shuttle astronaut, so I was on board for 11 days. Our mission did extend just slightly because of some problems our vehicle had had. And again, our ground team worked, solved those problems, and then we undocked. So all total, I've been in space for only 15 days, so not nearly as long as Butch and Sunny. But again, what I had there, I felt overly supplied on my flight, especially with clothing. You just really don't need as much as we sometimes did.

There's more, of course, on that Starliner returning back to Earth on the BBC news website. We have full coverage and analysis.