(NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)
Boeing’s new passenger spacecraft, the CST-100 Starliner, landed safely in the New Mexico desert this morning, bringing a swift end to a very rough debut flight to space. The space capsule, which didn’t have any people on board, was meant to spend up to a week in orbit and dock with the International Space Station. But a software problem during launch prevented the Starliner from reaching the station, and Boeing was forced to bring the spacecraft home after just two days.
Despite the troubles during the trip up, Starliner’s landing was otherwise flawless. The capsule took itself out of orbit at around 7:23AM ET on Sunday and plunged through Earth’s atmosphere to reach the surface below. After surviving temperatures of 3,000 degrees…