NASA on Monday responded to an audio recording that surfaced last week of an astronaut asking about an unusual noise that was emitting from Boeing’s Starliner craft.
“I’ve got a question about Starliner,” Wilmore told ground control. “There’s a strange noise coming through the speaker ... I don’t know what’s making it,” he added.
“I don’t know if it’s something that’s maybe connected between here and there making that happen,” he said. After some confusion, he then appears to place the microphone next to the Starliner speaker, producing a pulsing noise.
An official Mission Control is then heard saying: “It was kind of like a pulsing noise, almost like a sonar ping.”
“A pulsing sound from a speaker in Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft heard by NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore aboard the International Space Station has stopped,” NASA said. “The feedback from the speaker was the result of an audio configuration between the space station and Starliner.”
It noted that the International Space Station, or ISS, has a “complex” audio system that allows several modules and spacecraft to be connected to one another.
“It is common to experience noise and feedback,” NASA said. “The crew is asked to contact mission control when they hear sounds originating in the [communications] system.”
The speaker feedback that was heard in the audio, it said, had “no technical impact to the crew” as well as the Boeing Starliner, ISS operations, or other systems.
Wilmore and fellow NASA astronaut Suni Williams flew to the ISS aboard the Boeing spacecraft, which docked in June after they launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on an Atlas V rocket.
However, due to problems with helium leaks and thrusters on the Starliner, NASA has delayed the spacecraft’s return to Earth, leaving the two astronauts in space until next February. At that time, they will fly back on SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission, officials have said. Two of the Crew Dragon’s four astronaut seats will be kept empty for Wilmore and Williams.
NASA officials told reporters during a news conference in Houston last month that Wilmore and Williams, both former military test pilots, are safe and prepared to stay even longer. They will use their extra time to conduct science experiments alongside the station’s other seven astronauts, NASA said.
NASA said in a previous statement that Starliner will undock from the ISS without a crew in “early September.” The spacecraft will attempt to return to Earth autonomously, forgoing a core test objective of having a crew present and in control for the return trip.
“I know this is not the decision we had hoped for, but we stand ready to carry out the actions necessary to support NASA’s decision,” Boeing’s Starliner chief Mark Nappi told employees in an email. “The focus remains first and foremost on ensuring the safety of the crew and spacecraft,” he added.
