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The US Sun
Stranded Boeing astronaut reports ‘strange pulsing noises’ coming from doomed space capsule in eerie urgent call to Nasa
By Millie Turner,
4 hours ago
ONE of the stranded Nasa astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has reported a "strange noise" coming from the Starliner spacecraft he arrived on.
Butch Wilmore, 61, contacted the Johnson Space Centre in Houston on Saturday to alert them of the sound just days before the faulty vessel is sent back to Earth.
Butch Wilmore, 61, (bottom) and Sunita Williams, 58 (top) Credit: APStarliner is set to be undocked from the ISS on September 6, before it attempts an unmanned return to Earth on autopilot Credit: AP
"I've got a question about Starliner," Wilmore said on the radio, Ars Technica first reported.
"There's a strange noise coming through the speaker... I don't know what's making it."
Mission control managed to link up to the audio inside Starliner, which has been docked on the ISS for nearly three months after an eight day mission went awry.
Wilmore then put his microphone up to the speaker inside Starliner, to give ground controllers a better listen.
"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."
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... Call us if you figure it out."
Starliner is set to be undocked from the ISS on September 6, before it attempts an unmanned return to Earth on autopilot.
The Dragon capsule will ferry Nasa astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov to the ISS on September 24, picking up Wilmore and Wilmore for a return flight.
Wilmore and Williams flew to the ISS for an eight-day mission in early June, following a launch that was plagued by helium leaks and delays.
The spacecraft safely delivered the pair to the ISS, but had sprung more helium leaks and five of its 28 thrusters had failed by the time it arrived.
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