ORLANDO, Fla. — President Donald Trump says he has instructed SpaceX to return two NASA astronauts “virtually abandoned” on the International Space Station since last summer, even though the company is already scheduled to bring them back in about two months.
SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk posted on X, the social media network he owns, late Jan. 28 that Trump had asked him to bring back astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore “as soon as possible.”
“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 stated. “Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”
The comment stoked confusion in the space industry for two reasons. One was that there was no official announcement from NASA or the White House confirming plans to bring back the astronauts, raising questions about whether Musk’s post was intended to be taken seriously.
Trump confirmed the plan in a post on his own social media network, Truth Social, a few hours later. “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,” he wrote. “They have been waiting for many months on @Space Station. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon!!!”
Neither Musk nor Trump elaborated on the plan to return Williams and Wilmore from the ISS. A NASA spokesperson acknowledged an inquiry Jan. 28 about Musk’s statement and said the agency “will follow up as soon as we can.” NASA had not issued a statement or other information as of early Jan. 29.
Another reason the comment caused confusion is that NASA already has plans to return Williams and Wilmore using SpaceX. The two astronauts are scheduled to return on the Crew Dragon spacecraft that arrived at station in September on the Crew-9 mission with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos Aleksandr Gorbunov.
That return was expected to be by early March, but was delayed by problems with the Crew Dragon flying the next mission to the ISS, Crew-10. NASA announced Dec. 17 it was postponing the Crew-10 launch, previously scheduled for February, to late March, to give SpaceX more time to complete a new Crew Dragon spacecraft that would fly that mission. That would likely delay the Crew-9 return to early April.
There have been industry rumors of additional issues with that Crew Dragon spacecraft that would further delay the Crew-10 mission. That could lead SpaceX to use another Crew Dragon, such as the one being prepared for the Ax-4 private astronaut mission to the ISS, for Crew-10. Ax-4 was scheduled to launch as soon as April for commercial space station developer Axiom Space.
Williams and Wilmore launched to the station in June on the first crewed flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. That Crew Flight Test mission was originally scheduled to spend as little as eight days at the ISS, but NASA extended the stay for more than two months to investigate issues with spacecraft thrusters.
NASA decided in late August to bring back Starliner without a crew after concluding the thruster problems posed too much risk. Williams and Wilmore would remain on the station, and NASA reassigned two astronauts who were to fly on the Crew-9 mission to free up seats to allow Williams and Wilmore to return on that spacecraft, extending an eight-day stay to more than eight months.
NASA has long resisted claims that Williams and Wilmore were stranded on the ISS, noting that they could return in an emergency at any time, either on their original Starliner or on a Crew Dragon spacecraft.
The two astronauts, veterans of previous ISS missions, have also said they welcomed the opportunity to spend more time on the station. “Things that I can’t control I’m not going to fret over,” Wilmore said in a September media briefing.
“You sort of turn to and just take on the next activity of the day,” said Williams. “That’s what we do. We’re professionals.”
NASA also pushed back against calling Crew-9 a “rescue” mission. “I really look at it as a crew rotation mission where we rotate the crews,” said Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager, at a briefing before the Crew-9 launch. “We just happen to have two crewmembers already there a little early.”
While both Musk and Trump criticized the Biden administration for having “virtually abandoned” Williams and Wilmore, the previous NASA leadership said that the White House did not influence the decision last summer to keep them on the station.
“I can tell you unequivocally, from a personal standpoint, that politics has not played any part in this decision,” then-NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in August. “It absolutely has nothing to do with it.”
