Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have spent seven months in orbit instead of the originally planned eight days
US President Donald Trump has asked his close ally and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to bring back two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were unable to return to Earth and have been stuck on the International Space Station for nearly 200 days instead of the originally planned eight. Return flights to Earth have been repeatedly postponed due to a combination of technical issues.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, the US president wrote: “I have just asked Elon Musk and @SpaceX to “go get” the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration.” The Republican added that “Elon will soon be on his way.”
In a post on X that same day, the US-based tech tycoon confirmed that the “@POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so.” He also wrote, “Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”
In another message, Musk published a screenshot of Trump’s original post, accompanying it with a saluting face emoji.
On Tuesday a NASA spokesperson acknowledged an inquiry about Musk’s statement and said the agency “will follow up as soon as we can.”
Wilmore (61) and Williams (58) launched to the ISS on June 5 aboard the Boeing Starliner on the spacecraft’s maiden crewed voyage. However, NASA engineers soon discovered four helium leaks and thruster pressurization issues. After days of tests and discussions, NASA decided on August 24 to leave the two astronauts aboard the space station and bring the Starliner back without the crew, by remote control.
The agency later reassigned two astronauts originally slated for the Crew-9 mission with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, to free up seats for Wilmore and Williams, extending their intended eight-day stay to more than seven months.
In December NASA announced that the Crew-10 launch was postponed to late March to allow SpaceX time to complete a new spacecraft. This delay was expected to push the Crew-9 return to early April.
Industry rumors suggested further delays for Crew-10, which could lead to SpaceX using another Crew Dragon, possibly the one being prepared for the Ax-4 private astronaut mission, scheduled for launch as soon as April for Axiom Space.
The astronauts themselves have maintained a professional stance on the situation. “Things that I can’t control I’m not going to fret over,” Wilmore said in a September briefing. Williams added, “You sort of turn to and just take on the next activity of the day. That’s what we do. We’re professionals.”
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