A taxi driver from Buenos Aires, Argentina, asks Russian cosmonauts on a spacewalk for directions. This is the surreal scene that occurred on April 19 when the International Space Station (ISS) was 430 km above the Argentine capital.

Astronauts Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin were installing a radiator outside the ISS at the time. But in the middle of the mission, an unexpected radio message was picked up by NASA, reports Sciences et Vie. A journalist watching a broadcast of the operation watched the whole scene and posted the footage on Twitter.


"150 dijiste, from Irigoyen?"

¿Alguien me puede explicar esto?

En plena transmisión de la caminata espacial se escucha lo que pareciera ser un radio taxi en Argentina... O algún servicio de delivery? 👇 pic.twitter.com/3JJq65g3Fb

— Manuel Mazzanti (@manumazzanti) April 19, 2023

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The same frequency band used

According to him, the taxi driver wanted to verify that he had understood the address he had been given. A request that the two cosmonauts could not access. The exchange lasted three seconds and surprised everyone who followed the live. The NASA host quickly apologized for the interference.



How could this happen? When cosmonauts exit the ISS, they use a UHF radio wave band (300 to 3,000 MHz) to communicate with Earth. This frequency band is identical to that used by taxi drivers in Buenos Aires. This kind of interference could happen again when the ISS is over a major city and its hosts are performing an operation requiring communications with the ground base.

  • Taxi
  • ISS
  • Space
  • NASA
  • Astronaut
  • Argentina
  • Buenos Aires
  • Sciences