Boeing’s troubled Starliner capsule, currently docked at the International Space Station, has begun to emit strange noises, a crew member has reported.
On Saturday NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore detected some strange noises coming from a speaker inside the Starliner spacecraft.
The troubled Boeing Starliner spacecraft that launched Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station.Credit: AP
“I’ve got a question about Starliner,” Wilmore told mission control in Houston. “There’s a strange noise coming through the speaker … I don’t know what’s making it.”
After some discussion, Wilmore got mission control to listen in to the Starliner capsule for themselves.
“Alright Butch, that one came through,” mission control radioed up to Wilmore. “It was kind of like a pulsing noise, almost like a sonar ping.”
“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,” Wilmore replied. “Alright, over to you. Call us if you figure it out.”
A series of thruster failures and helium leaks in the new capsule marred the test of the Starliner in June. What should have been an eight-day mission has extended to eight months, as NASA, Boeing and rival company SpaceX determined the next course of action.
Last week, NASA officials deemed issues with Starliner’s propulsion system too risky to bring its first crew home as planned, dealing a major blow to Boeing’s struggling space program.
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