The Boeing Starliner spacecraft, currently docked at the International Space Station (ISS), has started emitting peculiar noises that have left NASA astronauts and mission control puzzled. On Saturday, astronaut Butch Wilmore contacted Mission Control at Johnson Space Center in Houston to report the unusual sounds coming from a speaker inside the spacecraft.
To provide ground controllers with an idea of what they were hearing, Wilmore put his microphone up to the speaker. Mission Control confirmed hearing a distinctive, pulsing noise that resembled a sonar ping. The astronaut repeated the process, giving the ground team an opportunity to investigate the cause of the mysterious audio.
The Starliner spacecraft maintains communication with the ISS via a radio frequency system during flight and through a hardline umbilical that carries audio once docked. While odd noises in space are not entirely uncommon, as demonstrated by Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei’s experience during the country’s first human spaceflight in 2003, the sonar-like sounds from Starliner have raised some concerns.
Boeing and NASA have faced numerous challenges with the debut crewed flight of Starliner, including substantial helium leaks in flight and failing thrusters. Just a week ago, NASA announced that due to uncertainty about the spacecraft’s flyability, it would return to Earth without its original crew, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
The current plan is for Starliner to fly back autonomously to Earth on Friday, September 6. Wilmore and Williams are now scheduled to return home next February aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft, which is set to launch with just two astronauts later this month.
While the strange noises most likely have a benign cause, as Wilmore did not sound frazzled during his communication with Mission Control, the incident adds to the list of issues that have plagued the Starliner program. As Boeing and NASA work to resolve these problems and ensure the safety and reliability of the spacecraft, the space community eagerly awaits further information on the origin of the mysterious sonar-like sounds.