NASA Astronaut Shares Audio Of Strange Noises Coming From Boeing’s Starliner Spacecraft
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft arrived at the ISS on June 6, 2024, but not without issues. Teams on the ground identified three helium leaks, one that was noted before launch, and two more during Starliner’s journey to the ISS. As teams tried to resolve the issues, NASA and Boeing struggled with whether to return the spacecraft back to Earth with or without crew onboard, with NASA finally deciding to go with the latter last week. Now, Wilmore has seemingly found another oddity with Starliner, a pulsing noise coming from one of the spacecraft’s speakers.
“There’s a strange noise coming through the speaker … I don’t know what’s making it,” explained Wilmore to Mission Control at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
After Wilmore asked if Mission Control could listen to the odd sound emanating from the speaker, Mission Control radioed back and remarked they were linked via “hardline” to listen to audio inside Starliner. Wilmore then placed his microphone up to the speaker, with an audible ping being heard shortly after.
“Alright Butch, that one came through,” Mission Control reported back to the astronaut. “It was kind of like a pulsating noise, almost like a sonar ping.”
Wilmore then responded back, “I’ll do it one more time, and I’ll let ya’ll scratch your heads and see if you can figure out what’s going on.” Following another ping, Wilmore remarked, “Alright, over to you. Call us if you figure it out.”
While it might be disconcerting to hear such an odd pinging noise coming from a speaker aboard Starliner, it is not uncommon for astronauts to report strange sounds while in space. In 2003, Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei reported hearing what sounded like an iron bucket being knocked by a wooden hammer while in orbit. Scientists later confirmed the sound was due to small deformations in the spacecraft due to a difference in pressure between its inner and outer walls.
Regardless, Wilmore did not sound too concerned when reporting the eerie pinging noises. However, it does add to the list of things NASA will have to figure out, such as substantial helium leaks and thruster issues, with Starliner. The Starliner spacecraft is scheduled to return back to Earth on September 6, 2024, without any crew onboard.
**Update 8/2/2024 10:50am EST: NASA posted an update on the pinging noise on X (see below).
