Boeing’s Starliner space capsule faces another problem

The ship is due to return to Earth, without its passengers, this Friday, September 6.

New humiliation for Boeing and its Starliner space capsule? This Saturday, one of the astronauts sent to the International Space Station (ISS) to which Starliner is docked reported to NASA “a strange noise” coming from inside the vessel.

It was the American Barry Wilmore who called the American space agency by radio, as can be heard in this recording which has been making the rounds on social networks.

“I have a question about Starliner,” he said. “There’s a strange noise coming out of the speaker… I don’t know what’s causing it.”

And to specify that it is “a kind of pulsating noise, almost like a sonar ping. I’ll leave you scratching your heads to see if you can figure out what’s going on,” he says.

Pulsed noise

For the moment, NASA has not commented on this alert while Starliner is experiencing a series of setbacks.

Let us recall that the capsule must return to Earth months late this Friday, September 6. Above all, it must return empty, without its astronauts, due to uncertainties about its ability to fly, following incidents observed during its flight, in particular helium leaks and thruster problems.

The takeoff to the station had also been cancelled several times due to incidents over the years of successive reports.

After keeping the initial crew of Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams waiting on board the ISS, NASA has decided that they will be repatriated next February thanks to a ship from SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company. A real snub for Boeing.

Ten years ago, NASA ordered two new vehicles from the American companies Boeing and SpaceX to transport its astronauts to the ISS. SpaceX has already been playing this role of space taxi for four years, while Boeing is having a series of setbacks and is risking its reputation.