Source of ‘Pulsing Sound’ From Boeing’s Troubled Starliner Identified
Meanwhile, NASA sets return date for empty spacecraft, as it crew remains aboard the ISS until February.
This weekend, the troubled Boeing Starliner spacecraft began making alarming noises while docked at the International Space Station (ISS), prompting one of the station’s astronauts to provide an urgent report to ground control.
The strange sound was first reported on Saturday morning by Butch Wilmore, who is trapped aboard the ISS with fellow astronaut Suni Williams after the Starliner started experiencing problems following its maiden crewed voyage in June.
The recorded interaction was first posted by a user on a NASA Space Flight forum.
In the recording, Wilmore asked NASA crew in Houston to identify the sound, which was described as both a “pulsing” and a “clanging.”
The Earthside crew member speculated that it sounded “almost like a sonar ping.”
Here is the unknown sound, as reported and recorded by astronaut Butch Wilmore coming from the Starliner spacecraft. pic.twitter.com/YhJt4jfVPU
— John Greenewald, Jr. (@blackvaultcom) September 2, 2024
NASA has determined the origin of the strange sound: A specific audio configuration between the ISS and Starliner.
NASA has shed new light on this weekend’s space mystery aboard the International Space Station, where an unusual sound could be heard from the speaker inside Boeing’s troubled Starliner spacecraft while docked at the ISS.
The space agency revealed Monday that the mysterious noise was the result of a specific audio configuration between the space station and the Starliner spacecraft.
“The space station audio system is complex, allowing multiple spacecraft and modules to be interconnected, and it is common to experience noise and feedback. The crew is asked to contact mission control when they hear sounds originating in the comm system,” read the NASA statement addressing the audio quirk.
NASA said the pulsing sound has stopped and has had no “technical impact to the crew.”
Meanwhile, the return date for Starliner has been set to September 6.
Teams with NASA and Boeing gave the green light to undock what will be the uncrewed spacecraft from the International Space Station as early as Sept. 6 at 6:04 p.m., leaving behind NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who flew up on board Starliner when it launched from Cape Canaveral on June 5.
The duo arrived on the ISS a day later, but because of thruster issues and helium leaks on Starliner’s propulsion module, NASA opted to play it safe and keep the astronauts on board the station to await a rescue ride home from Boeing’s competitor, SpaceX.
If the weather is clear for the landing site, Starliner will autonomously undock from the ISS, something it was able to do back in 2022 during the second of its two uncrewed test flights. It then faces a six-hour flight back to Earth with a desert landing target of White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico at 12:03 a.m. Sept. 7. After the parachute and air-cushioned landing, it will be shipped back to Boeing’s Starliner factory at Kennedy Space Center.
It must be noted that some people did have fun over the weekend with the news.
Omg 😱 some internet autist has translated the mysterious Starliner sound. 💀 📷] 🔊 pic.twitter.com/xiaLuYl8W2
— Chris Rodriguez (@cerodigs) September 2, 2024
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Comments
It may not be Aliens, but its Aliens
I’d think if it were aliens, it would have been much higher pitched, given all the leaking helium over there.
It’s the sound of a tool box falling down the stairs.
Pretty sure the sound was the warranty company asking them to renew.
I’m glad it was a comm quirk instead of a lost wrench.
The lost wrenches are found in the service access ports of the 767-based aerial refuelers and in C-17s.
Back in the day, after a series of accidents with the type, inspectors found a vacuum cleaner inside the fuel tank of a Lockheed Electra!
What did they find in the vacuum cleaner?
lest we forget about the liquor bottles found in the in-work AF1 incident.
Back when I worked at Sikorsky Military Completions Center in Horseheads, NY, they found a plastic straw in a UH-60M fuel bladder. There was an immediate Level IV CAR issued and a short time later a day-long facility safety stand-down was instituted.
Lost tools in stuff are a hallmark of RV manufacturing. Amish workers would rather “drill” a hole with the claw end of a hammer than an actual drill. Acquaintance of mine had an issue with his black tank refusing to dump properly. Peering up the drain port with a flashlight, he found a hammerhead lodged in the opening, probably used to “cut” the floor hole under the toilet and dropped into the tank. It was the devil to get out.
I get the same thing streaming Scott Adams into my landline telephone which I then call with my cell phone to hear the stream outdoors without incurring data charges on the cell service. There’s a delay and so pulsing feedback if the landline phone can hear the cell phone speaker.
Not a very satisfying explanation. Let’s see a Fourier analysis displaying the frequency components of this mysterious sound. Often a frequency domain plot reveals much more than a simple signal amplitude versus time display. Going beyond that, a time-frequency analysis might be even more revealing. For readers not familiar with time-frequency analysis see the book by Leon Cohen with said title.
Contemporary NASA seems (to me) incompetent compared o the NASA of the 1960s which had far more primitive tools. Engineers used slide rules– no HP calculators. The computers aboard the Shuttle had so little RAM, the crew had to hang a magnetic tape to load the landing program. Yet current NASA struggles to match the accomplishments of NASA of 1968, which did manage a moon landing. I suspect (but don’t know) the hiring practices of today compared to the 1960s. DEI seems to trump competence. BTW in even the 1960s NASA was woefully deficient in statistics. I know this from someone who worked there. The 1986 Challenger should never have happened. NASA engineers didn’t know how to properly plot data, leaving out the zeros from the O-ring data, and thereby obscuring the temperature correlation. Better yet, they should have done a logit analysis as Bell Labs published after the disaster. See https://www.jstor.org/stable/2290069
NASA suffered other screwups which should never have happened, such as the Apollo 1 fire. Every competent electrical engineer knows switches create sparks (which is a plasma between the contacts). An oxygen-rich atmosphere with electrical switches is asking for trouble. DUH!
Somebody left something out of the Starliner ground test plan. They most likely didn’t consider all the sneak circuits when they tested with the ISS interface simulator. Or maybe there wasn’t an ISS interface simulator.
the pulsing and clanging was the
taxpayers pocketbook
Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
The Sound of Starline
probably just interference from the other astronauts personal pleasure device
You know, saying “The calls are coming from inside the
houseStarliner” is not the reassuring answer they think it is.A David Bowie mp3.
it could be the sound of Jason Kim heading for the escape hatch…
https://www.ctol.digital/news/boeings-millennium-space-systems-new-ceo-industry-uncertainty/
The sound source is identified?
Do you believe NASA? Would you bet your life on it?
Nope. Me neither.
Someone snuck aboard for some alone time and was watching reruns of Voyage to The Bottom of The Sea.
kowalskiiiiiiiiii
“16 days, 8 hours, 23 minutes, 24 seconds
16 days, 8 hours, 23 minutes, 23 seconds…..”
waiting for the first possible lawsuit for sexual violence from outer space
not including anything from a star wars flick
atty:
so you gave her some orange juice by saying :
here,,want some tang?
just what did you mean by that?????
Too bad it’s not possible to paint the word “MAX” on the side of the Starliner.
“Wilmore asked NASA crew in Houston to identify the sound, which was described as both a “pulsing” and a “clanging.”
Houston told them to temporarily abort the capsule’s spin and more evenly redistribute the wet clothes.
1) NASA says it is audio feedback.
2) How much credibility does NASA have anymore?
3) In any case the matter will likely be settled September 6, no matter what happens.
4) Just as a matter of curiousity; I wonder if Williams and Willmore have been communicating with attorneys, just in case?
Subotai Bahadur
“The space station audio system is complex, allowing multiple spacecraft and modules to be interconnected, and it is common to experience noise and feedback. ….”
Ummmm, perhaps NASA/Boeing should nip down to the nearest music gig and get one of the sound techs to come and give them a hand for an hour! (insert shruggie here!)
Audio systems are hard. Let’s go shopping!
DEI Barbie!
The hair dude from Ancient Aliens in headed to Egypt now to board his own ship to investigate, LOL.
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