Summary
- Boeing Starliner is emitting mysterious ping noises and engineers can’t determine the cause.
- Strange noises have an eerie sonar-ping quality, but aren’t being treated as a major concern.
- Starliner will attempt an uncrewed undocking and return on September 6th.
The
Boeing
Starliner, which is currently attached to the International Space Station (ISS), has reportedly started emitting mysterious ping noises. NASA and Boeing engineers have so far been unable to determine the cause of the unusual sounds.
Starliner starts making strange noises ahead of return
As first reported by ArsTechnica, NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore started hearing the unexplainable noises on August 1st while inside the Starliner spacecraft, stating during a call to Mission Control in Houston that there was “a strange noise coming through the speaker.” Wilmore asked the team to try and listen into Starliner, then held his microphone up to capture the sound.
Photo: Keith J Finks | Shutterstock
Mission Control said it was connected to its hardline audio line and initially could not hear the sounds, but later picked up a “kind of pulsing noise, almost like a sonar ping.” The sound occurs at fixed intervals and has an eerie underwater feel to it, almost as if inside a submarine – Wilmore confirmed that the sound was coming through Starliner’s internal speaker and did not notice any other abnormal sounds inside or outside the spacecraft.
While not being treated as a major concern, engineers have reportedly not been able to determine what the sounds are, or why they are occurring. Starliner suffered several control thruster malfunctions and helium leaks during its June launch, forcing NASA and Boeing to extend its stay in space from a planned eight days to almost three months.
Return set for Friday
As Simple Flying covered last week, NASA has confirmed its return plans for Wilmore and fellow astronaut Sunita Williams – who both traveled to the ISS onboard Starliner back in early June – who will now be coming back on a SpaceX Crew Dragon in February 2025. Despite Boeing’s engineers expressing confidence in the test data, NASA ultimately deemed Starliner too risky to fly back with a crew, reiterating that it was on an experimental flight test.
As a result, Starliner will attempt an uncrewed return to Earth on Friday, September 6th, a journey it has successfully completed before, during a flight test in 2022. This has also altered the upcoming Crew-9 mission, which will launch in late September with only two astronauts – NASA’s Nick Hague and a Russian astronaut – to make room for Wilmore and Williams.
Photo: NASA
If all goes to plan, Starliner will land just after midnight at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico on Saturday, September 7th. NASA is scheduled to host a pre-departure news conference at 12:00 CDT on Wednesday, while the agency will livestream Starliner’s undocking from around 17:45 on Friday.