Mechanical Sound Heard from Starliner Speaker
"Like Pulse Noise or Submarine Ping Ping Ping"
The manned spacecraft 'Starliner' by Boeing, scheduled to return to Earth next week, has been found to have unidentified noise coming from its speaker. The NASA astronaut aboard the spacecraft was reportedly startled by the noise.
On the 1st (local time), the US technology media outlet Ars Technica reported that an unknown noise was heard from the speaker of the 7-seat Starliner spacecraft currently docked with the International Space Station (ISS).
The NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore, who first noticed the phenomenon, radioed the Johnson Space Center headquarters in Houston, USA. At the time, he reportedly said, "There is a strange sound coming from the speaker. I don't know what the sound is."
Subsequently, the headquarters decided to listen to the noise directly. Wilmore placed a microphone near the speaker emitting the noise and transmitted the sound to the headquarters via radio. Listening to the noise released by NASA, it sounds like a machine striking rhythmically. NASA experts, after hearing the noise, evaluated it as "a pulse sound, or similar to the ping-ping-ping sonar sound commonly heard in movies."
Starliner has been docked with the ISS for three months and is scheduled to return to Earth next week. Originally, Starliner was supposed to return to the ground carrying ISS astronauts, but due to a recent defect, it was decided that only the spacecraft would return unmanned. Wilmore stated that he is unsure whether the noise is caused by a malfunction in the connection between the ISS and the spacecraft or by another cause.
However, the media reported that strange noises are occasionally detected from spacecraft in space. For example, during China's first manned spaceflight in 2003, a sound resembling a wooden hammer striking a metal bucket was heard while orbiting Earth. Later scientific analysis determined that the noise was caused by deformation of metal due to pressure differences between the inside and outside walls of the spacecraft.
The media suggested that the regular mechanical noise coming from the Starliner speaker is likely due to a similar cause. However, it also pointed out that the defect issues Starliner has experienced cannot be overlooked. Starliner left Earth in June carrying two astronauts, but multiple spacecraft defects such as failure of five thrusters and helium leakage were confirmed, delaying its return to Earth for several months.
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