Crewmembers on the International Space Station reported on Wednesday hearing a brief, metallic crunching noise as if something struck the outside of the outpost, but checks turned up no damage, a newspaper reported. Astronaut Mike Foale told NASA's Mission Control that it sounded as if something hit the rear of the station's Russian module that houses the crew sleeping quarter, kitchen and lavatory, the Houston Chronicle said in its online edition. "It sounded like a metal tin can kind of being expanded and compressed," Foale told Mission Control. "It was a noise that lasted about a second. It sounded like an impact or something." News reports last month said some NASA experts have warned that environmental monitoring and health maintenance systems on the station had deteriorated to the point that it was unsafe for astronauts. NASA has been under the microscope since the Feb. 1 shuttle Columbia accident that killed the seven astronauts on board. Investigators blamed the disaster on lax safety procedures at the U.S. space agency. On Wednesday, Russian astronaut, Alexander Kaleri, said he also heard the sound, which was reported at 2:59 a.m. EST, as the astronauts were finishing breakfast, the Chronicle said.

The astronauts, with NASA engineers watching on the ground, used a video camera on the station's 57-foot-long robot arm to scan the external section where the sound came from, but saw no damage. "All systems are intact," NASA spokesman Rob Navias told the newspaper. "All of the data from the U.S. and Russian sides shows nothing out of the ordinary."

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