So… the strange journey of Starliner continues. There seems to be an electronically-generated chirping emanating from the capsule’s speakers from time to time — and Mission Control has confirmed that it too can hear it, through Butch’s microphone / headset. Just one more good reason to get the craft to ground, safely, and disassemble it for inspection — and ultimately… design improvements.

Here’s the latest from the very reliable British news outlet The Guardian, on it all:

…The source of the pulsing noise coming from Boeing spacecraft has not yet been traced. Wilmore asked Houston flight controllers to see if they could listen but ultimately Wilmore, apparently floating in Starliner, had to put his microphone up to the speaker.

“Alright Butch, that one came through,” Mission control radioed Wilmore. “It was kind of like a pulsing noise, almost like a sonar ping.” Wilmore radioed back: “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.”

The strange ping was captured and shared by a Michigan-based meteorologist named Rob Dale and was first reported by Ars Technica. According to the outlet, audio oddities in spacecraft are not unusual. In 2003, Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei said he heard what sounded like an iron bucket being struck by a wooden hammer….

Now you know — speaking of space — perhaps a “Romulus” viewing this evening, on a quiet Labor Day ’24. And… get ready, you Buff fans, for Saturday’s national TV games. Smile… the Huskers will play tough, end to end, in Lincoln.

नमस्ते

This is a smart, conservative move. Never take an avoidable risk, with live crew.

[And if it doesn’t go well, most of America will be sound asleep.] But to be clear, I do expect it will bounce safely onto the ground in the western United States, at White Sands, New Mexico. Here’s the latest, from NASA — coverage details, too:

. . .NASA will provide live coverage of the upcoming activities for Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft departure from the International Space Station and return to Earth. The uncrewed spacecraft will depart from the orbiting laboratory for a landing at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.

Starliner is scheduled to autonomously undock from the space station at approximately 6:04 p.m. EDT Friday, Sept. 6, to begin the journey home, weather conditions permitting. NASA and Boeing are targeting approximately 12:03 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 7, for the landing and conclusion of the flight test…

NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will launch no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 24, on the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson, previously announced as crewmates, are eligible for reassignment on a future mission…

The updated crew complement follows NASA’s decision to return the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test uncrewed and launch Crew-9 with two unoccupied seats. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who launched aboard the Starliner spacecraft in June, will fly home with Hague and Gorbunov in February 2025….

Now you know. Onward.

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