The Starliner is scheduled to detach from the International Space Station in the coming days and return to Earth unmanned, but it appears there are some new mysteries plaguing the team before it departs. On Saturday, astronaut Butch Wilmore notified NASA Mission Control that he was hearing an unexplained “weird noise” coming from the spacecraft’s speakers. The sound can be heard in an audio clip of the conversation shared by meteorologist Rob Dale on the NASASpaceflight forum (spotted by Ars Technica). The sound begins around the 45-second mark and is a steady, humming rhythm. “I don’t know what it’s making,” Wilmore said.
NASA later said in a statement to SpaceNews reporter Jeff Faust on Monday that the noise had stopped, and blamed it on the audio setup between the ISS and Starliner. NASA said it was simply speaker feedback.
The noise caused a bit of a headache over the weekend. When they checked in with Mission Control on Saturday, they said they heard it too, and when Wilmore held his microphone up to the speaker, a flight controller in Houston said, “It kind of sounded like a pulsing noise, like a sonar noise.” Wilmore then let the noise play for about 20 seconds before ending the call. “Just to be sure, this is coming from the speaker on the Starliner,” Mission Control asked. “Is there anything else you noticed? Any other noises or weird settings there?” The astronauts said at the time that everything else seemed normal.
“The space station’s audio systems are complex, with multiple interconnected spacecraft and modules, and it is common for noise and feedback to occur,” NASA said in a briefing to Faust on Monday. “Crew members are asked to contact Mission Control if they hear any sounds emanating from the communications systems.” The incident did not affect the crew or Starliner’s departure schedule, NASA added.
The Boeing spacecraft has been docked with the ISS since early June, and engineers have been hard at work since then trying to determine the cause of the problems that arose during the first crewed flight. When Starliner finally returns to Earth on September 6, it will leave Wilmore and NASA astronaut Suni Williams behind on the ISS. They will continue to work on the ISS for the next few months while they await SpaceX’s return in February 2025.
Update, Sept. 2, 2024 at 2:30 p.m. ET: This story has been updated to include a statement and clarification from NASA.
