NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore has reported a ‘strange noise’ coming from a speaker inside the Starliner spacecraft.
Wilmore, who arrived at the International Space Station on June 6 as part of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test, is facing an unexpected situation. The Starliner capsule has malfunctioned, potentially leaving him and Suni Williams stranded in space until 2025.
As part of the Expedition 71 crew, Wilmore has been engaged in various scientific and operational tasks. However, an unforeseen issue arose last week.
On Saturday, August 31, Mission Control at Johnson Space Center in Houston received a radio call from Wilmore. In the call, Wilmore, a veteran of two previous spaceflights, reported hearing something unusual.
In an audio recording captured by Michigan-based meteorologist Rob Dale and obtained by Ars Technica, Wilmore can be heard asking a question about the Starliner spacecraft. The Starliner is designed to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station and other low-Earth-orbit destinations.
Wilmore stated: “There’s a strange noise coming through the speaker and I didn’t know if you could connect into the Starliner and let me… I don’t know what’s making it.”
The team on Earth then connected via a ‘hardline’ to try and listen in to the onboard Starliner.
However, when they reconnected with Wilmore, they reported: “Negative. We did not hear anything.”
Wilmore then managed to share the noise he’d been hearing—a sort of tinny, pounding sound, beating rhythmically like a clock.
“Okay Butch, that one came through,” Mission Control responded.
They theorized: “It was kind of like a pulsing noise, almost like a sonar ping.”
Wilmore replied: “I’ll do it one more time, and I’ll let y’all scratch your heads and see if you can figure out what’s going on. Here we go.”
The peculiar noise coming from the Starliner was clearly audible through Wilson’s audio. However, the cause of the sound remains a mystery.
Wilmore concluded the call by saying: “Alright, over to you. Call us if you figure it out.”
Wilmore and Williams are not scheduled to return to Earth until February 2025. However, Ars Technica reports that the Starliner is set to fly back to Earth on September 6.
It remains to be seen whether the source of the noise will be identified before then, or if it will require an inspection once the spacecraft is back on Earth.
In any case, many hope the mystery will be resolved soon. As one Twitter user noted: “This is horror movie material.”