A NASA astronaut at the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday reported hearing a “strange noise” coming from the Boeing Starliner spacecraft just days before it is set to leave the station and return to Earth on autopilot.
The astronaut, Butch Wilmore, radioed Mission Control at Johnson Space Center in Houston to inquire about the noise.
On an audio recording of the exchange, Wilmore holds up a phone to the speakers so that Mission Control could hear the noise he was referring to. A pulsating sound emanating at steady intervals can be heard through Wilmore’s device.
“Butch, that one came through,” Mission Control says after not hearing it the first time. “It was kind of like a pulsating noise, almost like a sonar ping.”
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is docked to the Harmony module of the International Space Station on July 3, 2024, as seen from a window on the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft docked to an adjacent port. (NASA via AP)
“I’ll do it one more time and let you all scratch your heads and see if you can figure out what’s going on,” Wilmore tells Mission Control, playing the sound one more time.
Mission Control tells Wilmore the recording will be passed along and that they’ll let him know what they find.
Wilmore clarifies that the sound is emanating from the speaker inside the Starliner.
The bizarre sound was first reported by Ars Technica, which cited a recording first captured and shared by Michigan-based meteorologist Rob Dale.
NASA’s Boeing crew flight test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are shown inside the International Space Station’s Harmony module and Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on June 13, 2024. (NASA)
Fox News Digital has reached out to Mission Control and Boeing to inquire if the source of the sound has been identified.
Starliner is slated to undock from the ISS, empty, and attempt to return on autopilot with a touchdown in the New Mexico desert.
NASA decided it was too risky to bring back Wilmore and Suni Williams until February. The astronauts were originally slated for a weeklong trip in early June, but the mission has been mired in problems after thruster failures and helium leaks.
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Boeing had counted on Starliner’s first crew trip to revive the troubled spacecraft program after years of delays and ballooning costs. The company had insisted Starliner was safe based on all the recent thruster tests in both space and on the ground.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.