Boeing’s doomed Starliner craft hit the headlines once again this week, after it started making strange noises.
Butch Wilmore, one of the two astronauts stuck on the International Space Station (ISS), recorded the capsule emitting an eerie ping, reminiscent of a submarine radar.
NASA has now confirmed that the noise was the product of feedback from the speaker.
However, many concerned space fans – including former astronaut Chris Hadfield – have been rattled by the issue.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr Hadfield, who was the commander of the ISS back in 2013, wrote: ‘There are several noises I’d prefer not to hear inside my spaceship, including this one that Starliner is now making.’
As Boeing’s Starliner started to make strange noises, former astronaut Chris Hadfield posed on X saying these are sounds he’d ‘prefer to hear inside my spaceship’
On Saturday morning, Wilmore radioed to Mission Control at Johnson Space Centre to ask why there were now unexplained noises coming from Starliner’s speakers.
In a recording, originally captured by a member of NASA Space Flight forums, Wilmore says: ‘I’ve got a question about Starliner, there’s a strange noise coming through the speaker … I don’t know what’s making it.’
After a few minutes, Mission Control radioed back to confirm that they were now calling via ‘hardline’ and could listen to the audio inside the spaceship.
As Wilmore held the microphone up to the speakers, the sound of a strange rhythmic clang could be clearly heard.
‘Butch, that one came through. It was kind of like a pulsating noise, almost like a sonar ping,’ Mission Control responded.
On Saturday, Starliner commander Butch Wilmore (pictured with Suni Williams) radioed down to mission control to report that the Starliner capsule had begun to make a strange sonar-like clang
NASA has now confirmed that the strange noises heard aboard Starliner were the product of feedback caused by an audio configuration issue
In an emailed statement, NASA said that the sound heard on Saturday was caused by ‘an audio configuration between the space station and Starliner’, adding that it has caused no further technical impact
Wilmore then told Mission Control he would ‘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’, before playing the sound again.
Mission Control did not seem to immediately know what was causing the noise, only telling Wilmore they would let him know what they found.
In an emailed statement shared today, NASA has now confirmed that it has managed to identify the source of the issue.
A NASA spokesperson wrote: ‘The feedback from the speaker was the result of an audio configuration between the space station and Starliner.
NASA’s statement did not come soon enough to prevent many on social media, including Elon Musk, reacting with shock to news of strange sounds on the ISS
Many leapt to some less-than-scientific theories about what might be causing the strange clanging noise
One social media user bluntly wrote that the noise was the product of ‘space ghosts’
‘The space station audio system is complex, allowing multiple spacecraft and modules to be interconnected, and it is common to experience noise and feedback.’
NASA notes that the ‘pulsing sound’ has now been stopped, but this has not prevented commenters on social media from leaping to some outlandish and terrifying theories.
On X, one commenter wrote: ‘Could starliner be haunted by a space ghost?’
Another added: ‘That is some Stanley Kubrick level horrorshow right there…’
And one, perhaps inspired by the recent release of Alien: Romulus, shared the film franchise’s iconic tagline, writing: ‘In space, no one can hear you scream.’
Other social media commenters drew cinematic comparisons to legendary director Stanley Kubrick’s terrifying works
Others made a comparison to the Alien film franchise, quoting the series tagline: ‘In space, no one can hear you scream’
Some darkly joked that the unusual noise was being made by ‘unspeakable cosmic horrors
Meanwhile one commenter joked darkly: ‘That’s the sound of impending unspeakable cosmic horrors.’
Especially worrying for Boeing is the fact that this comes just days before Starliner is scheduled to undock and return to Earth under autopilot, leaving its crew aboard the ISS.
The NASA spokesperson added that the feedback reported by Wilmore has had ‘no technical impact to the crew, Starliner, or station operations, including Starliner’s uncrewed undocking from the station no earlier than Friday, Sept. 6.’
However, the issue will still be unwelcome news to Boeing, who have already faced months of delays and technical issues with the craft.
The spacecraft successfully delivered Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the ISS in June but not before it had sprung more helium leaks and five of its 28 thrusters had failed.
In a press conference on August 24, almost two months after the crew began their ‘eight-day’ mission, NASA officials announced that it would be too risky to bring the astronauts home aboard the faulty Starliner.
In an embarrassing blow to Boeing, Wilmore and Williams will return aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft due to launch towards the ISS on September 24.
Two female NASA astronauts, Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson, have been bumped from the Crew 9 mission in order to free up space to bring the stranded astronauts home.
After originally planning to remain on the station for eight days, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams (pictured) will now have to remain aboard the ISS for eight months
Wilmore and Williams will not return to Earth with Starliner when the spaceship disembarks from the ISS under autopilot sometime after Friday, September 6
In August, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson (pictured) announced that Starliner was not considered safe enough for Wilmore and Williams to return aboard the spaceship
Even then, Wilmore and Williams will have to wait until the end of the Crew 9 mission which is not scheduled to return to Earth until at least February 2025.
To pass the time until then the pair have been incorporated as regular crew members of NASA’s Expedition 71/72 aboard the ISS.
This means the Wilmore and Williams will work to a regular NASA astronaut schedule working on scientific projects and maintenance for the station.
The decision was humiliating for Boeing, which has struggled for years to get its Starliner program off the ground and spent more than $4 billion of taxpayer money in the process.
‘We have had so many embarrassments lately, we’re under a microscope. This just made it, like, 100 times worse,’ one employee anonymously told the New York Post.
Wilmore and Williams will now have to remain aboard the ISS (pictured) until at least February 2025
‘We hate SpaceX,’ he added.
‘We talk s*** about them all the time, and now they’re bailing us out.’
Both Boeing and SpaceX were commissioned to develop a new spacecraft for NASA as part of the Commercial Crew Programme.
However, it is now not clear whether Boeing will have time to finish the development of Starliner before the ISS comes to an end.
NASA plans to use a SpaceX craft to tow the station out of orbit in 2030, giving Boeing just five years to get its commercial programme up and running.
But with $1.6 billion of their own budget invested and five years of development already passed, these setbacks render the future of Boeing’s Starliner uncertain.