A pulsing sound coming from the Boeing Starliner spacecraft over the weekend was speaker feedback, NASA says.
And it has stopped.
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Multiple news outlets, including Ars Technica, reported Sunday that astronaut Butch Wilmore told NASA Mission Control in Houston that he heard strange noises emanating from a speaker inside the Starline spacecraft, and asked flight controllers to figure it out.
On Monday, the NASA Commercial Crew account tweeted on social media platform X that the sound was the result of “an audio configuration between the (International Space Station) and Starliner.”
A pulsing sound from a speaker in Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft heard by NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore aboard the International Space Station has stopped. The feedback from the speaker was the result of an audio configuration between the space station and Starliner. The space…
— NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) September 2, 2024
“The space station audio system is complex, allowing multiple spacecraft and modules to be interconnected, and it is common to experience noise and feedback. The crew is asked to contact mission control when they hear sounds originating in the comm system,” NASA tweeted, adding that the noise had no technical impact on the crew, Starliner, or the station.
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft was launched to the International Space Station back in June, with Wilmore and Suni Williams on board. Technical problems have kept the spacecraft docked at the ISS for the past three months while Boeing and NASA tried to figure out if it was safe to bring the astronauts back to Earth on board Starliner.
However, officials have decided to bring Starliner back to Earth without the crew for further testing. They are targeting undocking from the ISS no earlier than Friday, Sept. 6.
Wilmore and Williams will stay aboard the station until February 2025 and come back aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule.
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