January 29, 2025
3 min learn
Trump Asks SpaceX to Return NASA’s ‘Stranded’ Astronauts to Earth ASAP
Regardless of a latest request from Trump, NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore had been already scheduled to return to Earth on a Crew Dragon capsule this spring
NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore on the Worldwide Area Station.
Nasa/Imago/Alamy Inventory Photograph
Nicely, that is one thing of a head-scratcher.
On Tuesday night (Jan. 28), President Donald Trump introduced that he has one other process for SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk, who’s already main a cost- and regulation-cutting effort referred to as the Division of Governmental Effectivity.
“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. 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!!!” Trump wrote in a publish on his Fact Social platform. The message was additionally revealed on X, the social media web site that Musk owns.
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Presumably, Trump means NASA’s Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who’ve been dwelling on the orbiting lab since June 2024.
They arrived on the primary crewed mission of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, which was alleged to final simply 10 days or so. Nonetheless, Starliner suffered points with its thrusters, and NASA prolonged Williams’ and Wilmore’s orbital keep whereas it and Boeing studied the issue.
In August, the company determined to not threat placing the duo on Starliner for the journey residence. The capsule would return to Earth uncrewed (which it did with out incident in September), and Wilmore and Williams would come residence in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule — the automobile flying the corporate’s Crew-9 mission, which launched to the ISS on Sept. 28.
This choice pressured some crew shuffling; NASA needed to take two astronauts off the initially four-person Crew-9 launch to make room for Wilmore and Williams on the downward leg. (Each Starliner astronauts are in good well being on the ISS, and there are many provides to help them by means of the tip of their keep, NASA officers have mentioned.)
Trump did not point out this current homecoming plan in his publish. And neither did Musk, who referenced the president’s request earlier than it was revealed on X.
“The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so. Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long,” Musk wrote in an X publish on Tuesday afternoon.
It is unclear what “as soon as possible” means on this context. Crew-9 had initially been slated to come back residence in late February, however that timeline has been pushed again at the very least a month in order that SpaceX can full work to prepared the Crew Dragon that can fly the four-person Crew-10 mission to the ISS. The Crew-10 Dragon is a brand-new (quite than flight-proven) automobile, and the corporate needs a bit extra time to verify every part out.
Does Musk imply to suggest that SpaceX will work to convey Crew-9 residence earlier than Crew-10 is able to launch? NASA in all probability wouldn’t be too proud of that plan, as Ars Technica’s Eric Berger famous. It will depart Don Pettit as the one NASA astronaut aboard the ISS for a stretch; he’d should carry out a whole lot of science and operations work by himself till reinforcements arrived.
Or might SpaceX change Crew-10’s Dragon, swapping it out for a flight-proven one to allow an earlier launch? In any case, the corporate has 4 Crew Dragons which have carried astronauts to and from orbit earlier than — Endeavour, Endurance, Freedom and Resilience. (Freedom is flying the Crew-9 mission and is subsequently already on the ISS.)
It is also potential that Trump and Musk, who has apparently turn out to be fairly shut with the president, are primarily enjoying politics with the scenario. Each blamed the Biden administration for Williams’ and Wilmore’s prolonged ISS keep, in any case.
Or possibly they’re merely trolling, one thing that each males — maybe the 2 strongest individuals on the earth — very a lot love to do.
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