As the Starliner spacecraft prepares to undock from the International Space Station and embark on its uncrewed return journey to Earth, a mysterious issue has arisen, leaving NASA’s team perplexed. On Saturday, astronaut Butch Wilmore alerted Mission Control to a strange noise emanating from a speaker on the spacecraft, which was captured in an audio clip shared on a NASASpaceflight forum.
The noise, described by Wilmore as unexplained, can be heard in the audio clip, starting at around the 45-second mark. It is a steady, pulsing sound that has left the team baffled. “I don’t know what’s making it,” Wilmore said, as he brought his mic closer to the speaker to allow Mission Control to hear the noise more clearly.
The flight controller in Houston confirmed that they could hear the sound, describing it as “kind of like a pulsing noise, almost like a sonar ping.” Wilmore allowed the noise to continue for another 20 seconds before ending the call. Mission Control then sought clarification, asking Wilmore to confirm that the noise was indeed coming from the speaker on Starliner and if he had noticed anything else unusual.
Wilmore reported that everything else on the spacecraft seemed normal, leaving the cause of the mysterious noise still unknown. The Boeing spacecraft has been docked with the ISS since early June, and engineers have been working to resolve issues that arose during its first crewed flight. When Starliner departs on September 6, it will leave astronauts Wilmore and Suni Williams behind on the ISS, where they will continue to work until they can return to Earth on a SpaceX mission in February 2025.
