The Boeing Starliner is a spacecraft designed by the US-based company to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. Developed under NASA's Commercial Crew Program, its purpose is to provide crew transport alongside SpaceX's Crew Dragon. The Starliner has been docked to the International Space Station for nearly three months now, since it was launched on June 5. However, things took a confusing turn, when NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore reported weird noises coming from a speaker aboard the Starliner to NASA’s Mission Control in Houston on August 31.
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Unsure if it was due to a connection issue or something else, Wilmore asked flight controllers to listen in on the audio. Using a hardline connection, Mission Control confirmed hearing a pulsing, sonar-like sound when Wilmore held his microphone to the speaker. The cause is still unclear, but such noises are not uncommon in space, often caused by structural deformations or EMI/RF shielding issues. Interestingly, while en route to the Moon in 1969, the Apollo 10 astronauts also reported hearing a strange whistling sound, which they described as "space music." This was later determined to be interference between the VHF radios on the spacecraft.
While the noise is being investigated, this news comes amid ongoing challenges with Starliner, including helium leaks and failing thrusters during its debut crewed flight. Boeing is already under fire for more than just its spacecrafts, and the timing of this incident couldn't be worse. NASA has since decided to return Starliner to Earth autonomously on September 6, without its original crew. Wilmore and fellow astronaut Sunita Williams will return to Earth next February aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft.
NEWS ????: Astronauts are reporting that Boeing Starliner is emitting strange "sonar like noises"
— Latest in space (@latestinspace) September 1, 2024
This is the real audio of it:
pic.twitter.com/iMuIkFfj6U