NASA astronaut hears 'strange noise' from Boeing Starliner before it returns to Earth, leaving 2 crew members stranded on ISS

A NASA astronaut at the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday reported hearing a “strange noise” emanating from the Boeing Starliner that is scheduled to return home to earth via autopilot. Astronaut Butch Wilmore immediately contacted Mission Control at Johnson Space Center in Houston to report the anomaly and inquire about its possible origin.

Wilmore can be seen moving the phone closer to the speakers so that MIssion Control can hear what he is referring to, a pulsating sound that can be heard at regular intervals. “Butch, that one came through,” Mission Control responds after initially not hearing the sound. “It was kind of like a pulsating noise, almost like a sonar ping.”

“I’ll do it one more time and let you all scratch your heads and see if you can figure out what’s going on,” Wilmore tells Mission Control, repeating his efforts to transmit the noise.

Mission Control tells Wilmore that the recording will be investigated and the results made known to the astronaut. Wilmore emphasizes that the sound seems to be coming from the Starliner’s speaker.

The phenomenon was first reported by Ars Technica, noting it was identified and disseminated by Michigan-based meteorologist Rob Dale, the New York Post reported.

Astronaut and former Canadian air force fighter pilot Chris Hadfield noted the sounds in a post on X: "There are several noises I'd prefer not to hear inside my spaceship, including this one that @Boeing Starliner is now making."

Starliner is expected to leave the ISS with no one aboard, return to the earth on autopilot and land in the New Mexico desert. NASA decided it could not safely return Wilmore and fellow astronaut Suni Williams until February, when it will need Elon Musk’s SpaceX to retrieve them. The astronauts were supposed to embark on a week-long space voyage in early June but thruster issues and helium leaks canned the mission

Boeing – currently engulfed with mounting problems with its aircraft fleet on earth – had hoped the Starliner could resurrect NASA’s troubled space program. The company declared that the Starliner had passed all recent thruster tests.