Sounds of Satellites

Audio recordings of ISS and satellite signals (mp3 format)

The records are provided as examples of what you can hear with a modest radio set-up. I have no intention to provide a database of radio records, and if there is "abuse" of the sample records on this page, I will cease making them available.

go directly to records of:     International Space Station (ISS)                      examples of other satellites

Special: records relating to the Delta mission, Andre Kuipers to ISS

A hobby that I recently took up, is listening to radio communications between astronauts in the International Space Station and ground control stations in eastern Europe. I use a quite simple receiver and aerial setup for that purpose. The receiver is an old handheld programmable radio scanner ("Realistic Pro-38"), connected to a home-made dipole aerial simply consisting of two 50cm length metal rods. This aerial is lying in my window-frame. The recordings below were made by directly connecting the radio scanner to the line feed of my lap-top.

With this setup I have received voice-traffic of the ISS crew to the Russian groundstation on 143.625 MHz several times now. My first receipt of ISS radio was of Alexander Kaleri talking in Russian (see also my ISS weblog) on December 26th, 2003, but I had no recording equipment ready at that time. On January 28, 2004, I was able to record ISS commander Michael Foale talking about president Bush his new space initiative in a question & answers session on the 145.8 MHz Ham frequency (see also my weblog), an mp3 record of which is available below. A few days later, on 31 January, there was voice contact in Russian between ISS and groundcontrol at 143.625 MHz, probably related to the docking of Progress M1-11 supply ship a few hours earlier (an mp3 of some of this is available as well below). Following that, I have heard ISS talk to groundstations on 143.625 MHz on several occasions. Very lively radiocommunications were recorded by me in the late morning of 2004 February 19, when the ISS crew 8 was performing an exercise crawling into the Soyuz spaceship in their Orlan spacesuits, closing the hatch and testing communications, in preparation for a spacewalk (EVA) a week later. I could follow the very busy radio traffic for several minutes on that occasion as ISS flew over Leiden: a small fragment of recording is available below.

Delta Mission: Andre Kuipers to ISS

Andre Kuipers talking! Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers was having an educational talk at the 145.8 MHz HAM frequency with groups of Dutch schoolchildren and students gathered at Eindhoven Technical University during an ISS pass over the Netherlands on 25 April 2004, about 10:00 UTC. A 48s sound clip of part of the transmission as heard from Leiden (mp3, 188 kb), in Dutch.

Andre Kuipers talking! Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers was having an educational talk at the 145.8 MHz HAM frequency with groups of Dutch schoolchildren gathered at ESTEC Noordwijk during an ISS pass over the Netherlands on 24 April 2004, about 7:55 UTC.  A 1m18s sound clip of part of the transmission as heard from Leiden (mp3, 308 kb), in Dutch.

Communications on 143.625 MHz (mp3, 158 kb, 26 seconds) heard from Leiden on 22 April 2004, about 8:31 UTC. You are probably hearing ISS crew 9 commander Genadi Padalka, in Russian.

Communications on 143.625 MHz (mp3, 189 kb, 32 seconds) heard from Leiden on April 21, 2004, about 6:24 UTC, only minutes before opening of the hatch between Soyuz TMA-4 and ISS. Voice's are probably ISS crew 9 flight-engineer Mke Fincke, and a relay of Mission Control. The same communication was also heard by John Locker in the UK on 121.75 MHz (143.625 MHz is the ISS downlink, 121.75 MHz is the Soyuz downlink). See also my radio log.

ISS recordings:

Voice of ISS crew 8 commander Michael Foale (8 seconds, 51 kb, 1 April 2004, about 18:33 UTC) talking about the pain he experiences for at least 3 days after return from a spaceflight. This was a question & answer session on the 145.8 MHz HAM frequency with two French schoolclasses, the "College Georges Brassens of Saint Mard", and the "Jacques Prevert" school in St. Mard, just north of Paris (see the ARISS website).

 Voice of ISS crew 8 commander Michael Foale (15 seconds, 86 kb, 1 April 2004, about 18:33 UTC) talking about the temperatures outside ISS. This was a question & answer session on the 145.8 MHz HAM frequency with two French schoolclasses, the "College Georges Brassens of Saint Mard", and the "Jacques Prevert" school in St. Mard, just north of Paris (see the ARISS website).

Voice of ISS Crew 8 commander Michael Foale (25 seconds, 98 kb, 28 Jan 2004, about 17:49 UTC) talking on the 145.800 HAM frequency during a question & answer session. He is talking about US president George W. Bush's recent speech on the new space initiative, and commenting on the first manned Chinese spaceflight in 2003. The question & answer session was with students of (British born) Foale's former school, the King's School in Canterbury, UK (see also the bulletin on the ARISS website, and a newsitem on the BBC website).

Voice of Foale and Kaleri (46 seconds, 272 kb), ISS crew 8, a very lively record made on 19 Feb 2004, around 10:16 UTC. These were communications during an Orlan/EVA exercise in preparation of an EVA (spacewalk) a week later. The exercise entailed getting into the Orlan spacesuits, crawling from ISS into the Soyuz, closing the hatch and testing communications. The record has been slightly edited (periods with excessive noise & long silence removed).

Voice of ft. engineer Alexander Kaleri in Russian (5 seconds, 73 kb) on 143.625 MHz (ISS to groundstation downlink) during a passage over Europe on 13 Feb 2004, about 10:21 UTC.

Voice in Russian (ISS ft. engineer Alexander Kaleri?) calling groundcontrol on 143.625 MHz (5 seconds, 39 kb, 31 Jan 2004, about 16:14 UTC). This was only a few hours after docking of the Progress M1-11 supply ship and probably related to it.

ISS packet radio signal (databurst) on 145.800 MHz  (12 seconds, 60 kb). 

Other satellites:

NOAA 17 weather satellite signal on 137.62 MHz  (13 seconds, 93 kb)

Kosmos navigation satellite signal on 149.91 MHz  (21 seconds, 146kb). This is a 50 bit/s datastream providing the time (in Moscow time zone) and navigational/orbital data. It sounds a bit like rapid Morse code (which it isn't).

Oscar  (Transit) US Navy Navigation satellite telemetry signal on 149.985 MHz  (26 seconds, 178 kb). These satellites originally were navigation aids for US submarines, and are now declassified and used for ionospheric research. They produce a very eery tune. 

This page is part of Marco Langbroek's website