‘Strange’ Noise Coming from Boeing Starliner Is ‘Common’

NASA has solved the auditory mystery that was first detected by astronaut Butch Wilmore coming from the troubled Boeing Starliner over the weekend.

“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 space agency wrote in a post on X on Monday, Sept. 2.

“The feedback from the speaker was the result of an audio configuration between the space station and Starliner,” NASA’s statement continued. “The space station audio system is complex, allowing multiple spacecraft and modules to be interconnected, and it is common to experience noise and feedback.”

On Saturday, Aug. 31, Wilmore, 61, first reported to NASA’s Mission Control that he was hearing “strange noises” emanating from the Boeing craft, which is currently attached to the International Space Station.

“I’ve got a question about Starliner,” Wilmore said, according to reported accounts of the exchange. “There’s a strange noise coming through the speaker … I don’t know what’s making it.”

“Butch, that one came through,” Mission Control said after not hearing it the first time. “It was kind of like a pulsating noise, almost like a sonar ping.” 

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NASA added in its statement on Monday that the crew is encouraged to contact Mission Control when they hear sounds and that the errant noise will not impact future operations.

“The speaker feedback Wilmore reported has no technical impact to the crew, Starliner, or station operations, including Starliner’s uncrewed undocking from the station no earlier than Friday, Sept. 6,” NASA said.

Wilmore and fellow astronaut Suni Williams, 58, have been in space for more than 80 days, after their planned eight-day foray into space aboard Starliner transitioned into a multi-month mission following Starliner’s mechanical issues.

Late last month, NASA announced that a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule would be the safest way to return the astronauts home — and that it would do so sometime in February.

“They’ll be able to handle it,” former colleague Scott Kelly, who spent hundreds of days in space himself, recently told PEOPLE.

The Starliner vehicle launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Florida’s Space Coast on June 5 sending the veteran astronauts to the International Space Station.

Shortly afterwards, NASA discovered the Starliner experienced helium leaks and its thrusters weren’t functioning amid the voyage.

The mechanical issues initially seemed minor, but NASA later determined Wilmore and Williams should stay at the ISS, where they’ve been conducting experiments and sharing tight sleeping quarters with the seven other astronauts already there.