Undocking

After undocking, it will re-enter the atmosphere and carry out a parachute and airbag-assisted landing in the western United States.

During the descent, the spacecraft will be remotely controlled if necessary to execute safe undocking, re-entry, and parachute-assisted landing in the southwestern United States.

Last month, teams at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico performed ground tests of Starliner’s thruster, putting it through similar conditions the spacecraft experienced on its way to the ISS, to see how it would react upon undocking.

In this photo provided by NASA/Roscosmos, the International Space Station floats above the Earth as seen from a Soyuz spacecraft after undocking on Oct. 4, 2018.

Expeditions run up to six months, from launch until undocking, an 'increment' covers the same time period, but includes cargo ships and all activities.

For ten days, the astronauts put both Apollo spacecraft through their paces in Earth orbit, including an undocking and redocking of the lunar lander with the command vehicle, just as the landing mission crew would perform in lunar orbit.

This provided limited results due to the lack of fuel for attitude control, but found that electron and ion temperatures were higher than expected and it registered shock effects during docking and undocking.