2024-09-02 21:31:33
An ISS astronaut has reported a “strange noise” coming from the docked Boeing spacecraft. NASA is now puzzling over what could have caused the sound.
Who or what is knocking there? US astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore, stranded on the ISS, reported a strange sound on the space station to NASA last weekend.
Wilmore called the control center in Houston and asked for help because he heard a repetitive “strange noise” coming from inside the docked Boeing Starliner space capsule. The spacecraft is connected to the ISS via loudspeakers.
The conversation between Wilmore and NASA was recorded by meteorologist Rob Dale and published on the “Nasa Space Flight” forum, as the magazine “ArsTechnica” first discovered. In the recording, the noise coming from inside the stranded Boeing space capsule can be heard.
The NASA ground station employee compared the sound during the conversation to a “sonar ping”, which is used by ships and submarines, among others, to locate objects underwater using sound.
Fans of the 1997 film “Contact” starring Jodie Foster might also recognize the sound. In the film, aliens send a pulsating signal to Earth that is similar to the sound transmitted by Wilmore.
It is doubtful that the knocking noise in the “Starliner” spacecraft is an attempt by extraterrestrials to make contact. It could rather be a feedback caused by the loudspeaker system in the Boeing space capsule, as other members of the “Nasa Space Flight” forum suspect. The exact cause of the noise is not yet known.
Wilmore and his colleague Suni Williams arrived at the ISS at the beginning of June with the first manned test flight of the “Starliner”. The mission was actually only planned for about a week, but then numerous technical problems arose with the “Starliner” – including with the engines and helium leaks.
NASA then decided not to bring the two astronauts back to Earth until next February and with another spacecraft, the “Crew Dragon” from SpaceX.
The “Starliner” from the US aerospace company Boeing is a partially reusable spacecraft that consists of a three-meter-high capsule for the crew and a service module. Unlike SpaceX’s “Crew Dragon”, it does not land on water, but on Earth.