Two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered Elon Musk to “go get” astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, NASA has announced the pair will likely arrive back on Earth a little sooner than planned.
The space agency announced Tuesday that SpaceX will switch capsules for upcoming astronaut flights in order to bring Wilmore and Williams home in mid-March instead of late March or April. That will shave at least a couple weeks off their prolonged stay at the International Space Station (ISS), which hit the eight-month mark last week.
The pair have been in space far longer than initially expected. They flew Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft to the ISS last summer for an eight-day test mission that, instead, has lasted almost a year because of problems with the craft’s propulsion system.
In August, NASA deemed Starliner too risky to bring them back to Earth and tapped SpaceX to return them on a Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Then SpaceX delayed the launch of its replacements on a brand new capsule that needed more prepping, which added more time to Wilmore and Williams’ mission.
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With even more work still anticipated for the new capsule, NASA opted for its next crew to fly up on an older capsule, with liftoff now targeted for March 12. This older capsule had already been assigned to a private crew awaiting launch this spring.
After Donald Trump’s demand of Musk late last month, NASA affirmed its plan to bring home the astronauts, saying it would do so “as soon as practical.” In its statement on Tuesday, the agency did not say its decision to change the Crew-10 capsule was made to bring the Starliner crew home early.
“Human spaceflight is full of unexpected challenges,” NASA’s Commercial Crew Program head Steve Stich said in a statement, praising SpaceX for its flexibility.
Trump’s call was an unusual intervention by a president into NASA’s meticulously arranged ISS schedule and foisted Wilmore and Williams into an unlikely political spotlight.
FILE – NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, left, and Suni Williams wave to photographers after leaving the operations and checkout building for a trip to launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 on June 5, 2024, in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Chris O’Meara / The Associated Press
Trump has been quick to blame former president Joe Biden for the pickle that left the astronauts in space, but Biden had nothing to do with NASA’s decisions.
Musk, publicly accepting Trump’s demand, also blamed Biden despite his space company’s work with NASA to solve a spaceflight dilemma widely acknowledged to be caused by Boeing.
Wilmore and Williams are among seven astronauts on the ISS, and they remain healthy and busy with routine scientific research aboard the orbiting outpost, NASA has said.
And while the astronauts’ unexpected stay has faced plenty of delays, it’s not unusual for space crews to end up on unexpected extensions. Strenuous, but standard, training prepares astronauts for lengthy stays in space.
— With files from Reuters and The Associated Press
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