Spectators watch the final fiery moments of the Starship test flight

The head of NASA’s human spaceflight programs has abruptly resigned, announcing his departure from the space agency two days before before he was to chair a crucial readiness review ahead of the launch of the first crewed U.S. space mission in nearly a decade.

Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule accomplished an early at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico at 7:58 a.m. EST (5:58 a.m. MST; 1258 GMT) Sunday to conclude an abbreviated two-day unpiloted test flight after a timing error on the spacecraft shortly after launch prevented it from linking up with the International Space Station as planned.

Moving closer toward launch Monday with a South Korean communications satellite, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fired its nine Merlin main engines Thursday on a launch pad in Florida in a key preflight readiness test.