Starliner returned autonomously in early September. Since then, NASA and Boeing have been reviewing data from the test flight. (Unfortunately, the errant thrusters were located on the service module of the spacecraft, which is jettisoned before reentry and was not recovered.)

The space rock is expected to zoom past our planet at a zippy 28,655 miles per hour, according to the space agency.

This first light, as it's called, shows that all of the spacecraft's systems are working just as expected. "Based on the images we are seeing, we can now say that the instrument team nailed it," Jamie Bock, SPHEREx’s principal investigator at Caltech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said in a statement.

NASA's SPHEREx observatory has started capturing its initial images, paving the way for a comprehensive study of millions of galaxies.

NASA and Boeing are still working on the thruster issues that Starliner experienced on its first crewed flight last year, so the capsule's next liftoff is a ways off yet.

the difficult choice became necessary when engineers uncovered a slew of helium leaks and thruster issues when Boeing's Starliner reached the space station. In its 2024 annual report, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel confirmed NASA made the right call ...

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams talk about their flight test on Boeing's Starliner capsule during a media event at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore spent 286 days on the International Space Station after technical issues bedeviled their weeklong mission.