'There's a strange noise coming from the speaker': Concerns grow for astronauts still stuck on ISS

The two astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have been stuck in the ISS since June. Initially leaving for 8 days, they are still in space, and concerns are being felt.

What was supposed to be an eight-day trip turned into a trip that lasted several months. The two astronauts are still stuck in space aboard the ISS. But while they are patiently taking their time, some phenomena are particularly worrying, reports DH net.

“Listen to this”

For safety reasons, the spacecraft is still docked to the ISS so that a battery of tests can be carried out to determine the origin of the problem with the Boeing Starliner's propulsion system. But this weekend, not everything went as planned.

One of the astronauts, Butch Wilmore, reportedly heard "strange noises", which is not reassuring. “There's a strange noise coming from the speaker. I have no idea where it's coming from. Listen to this,”, he said in a video sent to mission control.

According to a Canadian astronaut, these sounds are not a good omen. “There are several sounds I would rather not hear in my spaceship, including this sound the Boeing Starliner is making right now,”, Chris Hadfield posted on X (ex-Twitter).

For now, the search for the source of these noises is ongoing. The astronauts, meanwhile, are expected to remain in space until February 9.

Return scheduled for 2025

They took off on June 5, 2024, for an eight-day mission, but will not return until 2025. Two American astronauts are stuck on the International Space Station (ISS). They were originally supposed to stay in space for a short mission, but a series of technical problems prompted NASA to delay their return.

“Butch and Suni are not stuck in space”, the US space agency maintained three weeks after the astronauts landed on the ISS, arguing that tests still needed to be conducted for a safer return.”Yet a few days after these statements, NASA publicly acknowledged that the duo were indeed stuck on the station international.

The agency called on Elon Musk and his company SpaceX for the return of its two astronauts. An associate administrator of NASA said: “We are not obliged to bring back a crew on board Starliner: we can bring them back on board another vehicle.” Thus creating a shadow over Boeing, and increasingly favoring Elon Musk's company in the eyes of the American federal authorities in the conquest of space, explained Le Monde.