An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: NASA accidentally broadcast a simulation of astronauts being treated for decompression sickness on the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday, prompting speculation of an emergency in posts on social media. About 5:28 p.m. U.S. Central Time (2228 GMT), The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) live YouTube channel broadcast audio that indicated a crew member was experiencing the effects of decompression sickness (DCS), NASA said on its official ISS X account. A female voice asks crew members to "get commander back in his suit", check his pulse and provide him with oxygen, later saying his prognosis was "tenuous", according to copies of the audio posted on social media. NASA did not verify the recordings or republish the audio. Several space enthusiasts posted a link to the audio on X with warnings that there was a serious emergency on the ISS. "This audio was inadvertently misrouted from an ongoing simulation where crew members and ground teams train for various scenarios in space and is not related to a real emergency," the ISS account post said. "There is no emergency situation going on aboard the International Space Station," it added. Crew members on the ISS were in their sleep period at the time of the audio broadcast as they prepared for a spacewalk at 8 a.m. EDT on Thursday, the ISS post said. NASA's ISS YouTube channel -- at the time the audio was accidentally broadcast -- now shows an error message saying the feed has been interrupted.

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Longtime Slashdot reader destinyland shared a story from Space.com reporting on Boeing's missed opportunity to dock with the International Space Station, after five of the 28 thrusters that help control Starliner's movement in space stopped operating. NASA has since been able to recover four of the thrusters to successfully dock Boeing's Starliner capsule with the ISS. From the report: There are now two U.S.-built crew spacecraft docked with the ISS for the first time. Boeing's Starliner joined SpaceX's Dragon capsule "Endeavour," which arrived in March. Boeing's Starliner launched successfully on Wednesday to begin the crew flight test. The mission represents a final major step before NASA certifies Boeing to fly crew on operational missions. [...] NASA flight controllers called off a previously scheduled approach to resolve issues with Starliner's propulsion system. Starliner has 28 jets, known as its reaction control system, or RCS, engines, that help the spacecraft make small movements in orbit. The crew on Starliner, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, were told by NASA capsule communicator, or CAPCOM, Neal Nagata, that the 12:15 p.m. docking attempt had to be called off to resolve the spacecraft's propulsion issue. CAPCOM Nagata noted that the ISS has a zero fault tolerance for a spacecraft control problem. The agency and Boeing had to troubleshoot five of the RCS jets that were not operating. Four of Starliner's malfunctioning jets were recovered after Wilmore and Williams worked with flight controllers to test fire the thrusters. CAPCOM Nagata had the astronauts hold the spacecraft beyond the "keep out sphere," an invisible boundary around the ISS that serves as a safety measure, while diagnosing the problematic thrusters.

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