Starliner is scheduled to depart from the International Space Station and make an unmanned return trip to Earth in a few days, but probably still have a few new secrets to drop before heading to the team. On Saturday, astronaut Butch Wilmore alerted NASA’s Mission Directorate to an unexplained “strange noise” coming from a speaker on the spacecraft. audio clip From the conversation shared in a NASAS space flight forum (confirmed by meteorologist Rob Dale Ars Technica). It starts around the 45-second mark, playing with a steady beat. “I don’t know what did it,” Wilmore said.
After confirming that they, too, had heard the sound, Wilmore brought his microphone to speaker and said the air traffic controller in Houston, “It was kind of a pulse sound, almost like a sonar ping.” Wilmore then lets the call ring for about 20 more seconds before hanging up. “Just to make sure I’m on the same page, this is coming from the speaker on the Starliner,” Mission Control asked, “do you notice anything else there, any other noise, any strange configuration?” The astronaut notes that everything else seems normal.
It is still unclear what caused the noise. The Boeing spacecraft has been tethered to the ISS since early June, and since then engineers have been trying to get to the bottom of the problems that arose during its first crewed flight. When Starliner finally returns to Earth on September 6, it will leave its crew — Wilmore and NASA astronaut Suni Williams — behind at the ISS, where they will continue to work for the next several months. The trip home from SpaceX In February 2025.
