On Saturday, astronaut Butch Wilmore alerted NASA to a “strange noise” coming out of the Starliner spacecraft’s loudspeaker. He described it as similar to sonar pulses. However, the space agency has since resolved the issue.
A simple explanation. Boeing’s Starliner program may seem cursed, but there’s no evidence of the spacecraft being haunted. The pulsing sound heard through the speaker was due to a simple audio misconfiguration between the spacecraft and the International Space Station.
“The space station audio system is complex,” NASA said in an X post. “[It allows] multiple spacecraft and modules to be interconnected, and it is common to experience noise and feedback,” it added. However, this had “no technical impact on the crew, Starliner, or station operations.”
It has stopped beeping. Once NASA identified the problem, it managed to stop the sound that alerted the astronaut. It’s standard procedure for the agency to instruct the crew to report any noises from the communication system to the mission control center.
This time, however, the issue quickly gained media attention after the SpaceBasedFox X account captured and shared the recording of Wilmore’s conversation with NASA on social media. The poor performance of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft caused the footage to spread rapidly.
The sad return of Starliner. The incident was uneventful, and the spacecraft will proceed with the return plan approved on Aug. 29. Starliner is set to undock from the space station on Friday at 6:04 p.m. ET / 3:04 p.m. PT and return to Earth without any crew on board.
The Starliner spacecraft will execute the maneuvers autonomously under the supervision of flight controllers from NASA in Houston and Boeing in Florida. Wilmore and Suni Williams, the astronauts who were supposed to return on the spacecraft, will now do so in February 2025 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon.
Image | NASA
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