In a late afternoon post to X, SpaceX founder Elon Musk stirred up some confusion and consternation among the space community.
Without any indication ahead of time, Musk suggested that the Crew Dragon capsule, named ‘Freedom,’ may make an early departure from the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams onboard.
The pair have been on orbit since June 2024 when they arrived on the Boeing Starliner spacecraft as part of the Crew Flight Test mission. Ultimately, NASA made the determination that they would come home on Dragon because of lingering uncertainties surrounding Starliner.
“The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so,” Musk wrote shortly after 5 p.m. EST. “Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”
NASA leadership stressed repeatedly and in multiple forums that Wilmore and Williams are not “stranded,” but rather that Starliner didn’t have enough assurances around it to support a crewed trip back to Earth.
The spacecraft experienced issues with its propulsion system and experienced helium leaks during the trip to the space station, but was ultimately able to return to Earth safely. Because of ongoing work, Starliner hasn’t been certified to fly full, six-month crew rotation missions. It remains unclear when it will next fly.
“That was a unanimous decision not to return them on the Starliner,” said former NASA Administrator Bill Nelson during a reporter roundtable in December. “We finally knew with all that extra testing that they had done at White Sands, we knew what the cause was of why that valve was not performing, but we did not know why and that was just not worth taking the risk.”
Because of the decision to bring Starliner home autonomously and without its crew, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) pivoted and removed NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson from the crew lineup to make space for Wilmore and Williams to come home.
The duo, along with original Crew-9 members NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexandr Gorbunov, were originally scheduled to undock from the ISS in late February, following the arrival of the Crew-10 quartet.
However, an issue with the Crew Dragon designed to carry the Crew-10 mission to orbit, which happens to be the fifth and final planned Dragon to enter service, caused a launch delay to no earlier than late March.
“Fabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavor that requires great attention to detail,” said Steve Stich, NASA’s CCP manager said in a Dec. 17 blog post. “We appreciate the hard work by the SpaceX team to expand the Dragon fleet in support of our missions and the flexibility of the station program and expedition crews as we work together to complete the new capsule’s readiness for flight.”
Spaceflight Now reached out to NASA to see if it is planning on making any changes regarding the timing of either the Crew-9 return or the Crew-10 launch and is waiting to hear back.
