This image from a NASA video shows the Boeing Starliner capsule coming in for a landing in the darkness over New Mexico.

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Boeing’s beleaguered Starliner spacecraft successfully landed in New Mexico just after midnight Eastern Time, ending a crucial test flight that had caused NASA a real headache.

Space agency officials feared that the Starliner’s engines might malfunction during its return, as had happened with some engines on the way to the International Space Station.

That’s why the gummy bear-shaped space capsule only had cargo on board when it parachuted to Earth – and its first crew remained safely on board the International Space Station.

Leaving them there “was a tough decision. It was really difficult to decide whether we were going to leave the crew unmanned or not,” Steve Stich, program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, told reporters earlier this week.

However, since there was enough uncertainty about the engines’ performance, NASA officials preferred to play it safe. After all, the space agency is still haunted by two disasters from the past: the sinking of the space shuttles Columbia and Challenger and their crews.

Starliner launched on June 5 with astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on board. Boeing and NASA initially said its test flight would last about eight days.

Instead, the mission dragged on for weeks as Boeing and NASA officials tried to figure out why some engines failed as the Starliner approached the station.

The decision to return the Starliner without a crew means the astronauts will have to live on the station until February.

“Knowing this was a test flight, we intentionally put them through long-term training for the space station,” says Dana Weigel, NASA program manager for the station, adding that the astronauts helped with chores and science experiments. “We prepared them well for this role.”

The astronauts will fly home on an already planned flight from Boeing’s competitor SpaceX. NASA had to change its plans to ensure that two seats remained free in the SpaceX capsule.

And in case an emergency occurs on the space station and an evacuation is necessary before the capsule arrives, the station crew has had to cobble together two additional seats in another SpaceX spacecraft currently docked there.

All this was a major blow to space giant Boeing. Starliner had already completed two flights without a crew on board, and both times it encountered problems – the first flight in 2019 did not even reach the space station.

Although SpaceX received less money from NASA to develop a commercial space taxi service, the company still managed to develop a vehicle that has been transporting astronauts to the station and back for years.

NASA had launched its Commercial Crew Program to encourage industry to take over the transportation of astronauts and cargo to the station so it could focus on returning to the Moon and beyond.

Now that the Starliner is back on the ground, Boeing and NASA will continue to analyze the engines to determine whether modifying the spacecraft or the way it is flown can prevent the engines from overheating in the future.

Mission managers put the engines through their paces after the Starliner undocked from the station and before it autonomously piloted a safe landing at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.

“Many parts of the flight went great and Starliner is a great spacecraft,” Stich said. “What we really need to do is look at the things that didn’t work the way we expected.”