The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has clarified the reason behind the mysterious sounds coming from the faulty Boeing Starliner spacecraft docked at the International Space Station (ISS). The US space agency said that the pulsing sound coming from the Starliner was the result of an audio configuration between the space station and the spacecraft.
“The pulsing sound from a speaker on board Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft heard by NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore on the International Space Station has stopped. The response from the speaker was a result of the audio configuration between the space station and Starliner,” NASA Commercial Crew said on microblogging platform X (formerly known as Twitter).
“The space station’s audio system is complex, interconnecting multiple spacecraft and modules, and it is common to experience noise and feedback,” the space agency said.
NASA said the speaker feedback provided by Wilmore will have no technical impact on crew, Starliner or station operations, including the separation of Starliner from the station without a crew on board before Friday, Sept. 6, 2024.
Earlier, astronaut Butch Wilmore reported strange sounds coming from the defunct Starliner docked at the ISS. The astronaut contacted Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston (Texas) and reported a strange sound, almost like a sonar ping, that seemed to be coming from a speaker.
I have a question about Starliner. “There’s a strange sound coming from the speaker,” astronaut Wilmore told mission controllers. “I don’t know what’s causing that sound.”
The ground team at the Johnson Space Center in Texas is connected to the Starliner via a radio frequency system.
“Okay Butch, here it is. It was a pulsating sound, almost like a sonar ping,” Ars Technica quoted the ground control team as saying.
The source of the anomaly could not be traced at the time, Ars Technica reported.
NASA has decided to return the Starliner spacecraft to Earth without a crew due to technical problems. Starliner is scheduled to separate from the space station on September 7 at 3:34 am IST.
It is important to note that Boeing’s Starliner was launched to the ISS on June 5 with Wilmore and Sunita Williams on board. The spacecraft has faced several problems since its launch. Anomalies such as helium leaks and thruster problems in the spacecraft have extended NASA’s mission by three months.
