NASA affirms plan with SpaceX to return astronauts after Trump demand

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams pose for a picture at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, ahead of Boeing's Starliner-1 Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket to the International Space Station, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., June 5, 2024. / REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo

NASA affirmed on Jan. 29 a plan it set last year to work with Elon Musk's SpaceX in returning two astronauts from the International Space Station, saying it will do so "as soon as practical," the day after President Donald Trump suggested he wants a quicker return for the crew.

On Jan. 28 night, Trump said he had asked Elon Musk's SpaceX to return two NASA astronauts from the International Space Station, who were already scheduled to fly back on a SpaceX capsule in March.

Earlier, Musk said Trump had asked him to return the two astronauts "as soon as possible," suggesting a change to NASA's current plan for a late March return. "We will do so," Musk said.

"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," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "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!!!"

The astronauts were left on the ISS because of problems with Boeing's Starliner capsule, which led NASA in August to tap SpaceX for their return instead. Former President Joe Biden and his White House had no involvement in the agency's decision-making on the mission.

Trump's demand that SpaceX retrieve veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, who have been assigned a SpaceX ride home since August, was an unusual intervention by a U.S. president into NASA's operations that caught many agency officials by surprise, two officials said.

Wilmore and Williams are among seven astronauts on the ISS, and they remain healthy and busy with routine scientific research aboard the station, NASA has said.

A spokesperson with NASA, which oversees SpaceX's flights to the ISS, said, "NASA and SpaceX are expeditiously working to safely return the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore as soon as practical, while also preparing for the launch of Crew-10 to complete a handover between expeditions."

Wilmore and Williams flew Boeing's Starliner spacecraft to the ISS last summer for an eight-day test mission that instead has lasted nearly a year because of problems with the craft's propulsion system.

NASA in August, during Biden's administration, deemed Starliner too risky to bring them back to Earth and tapped SpaceX to return them on a Crew Dragon spacecraft.

That craft is already docked with the space station, having flown there for NASA's Crew-9 astronaut rotation mission in September with empty seats for Wilmore and Williams.

The astronauts' original February departure date on Crew-9 was delayed to late March because SpaceX needed more time "to complete processing" of a new Crew Dragon capsule that will replace theirs for the Crew-10 mission, NASA said in December.

The agency has a delicately coordinated ISS schedule, and an early Crew-9 return might leave the station's U.S. contingent understaffed.

It had been unclear whether Trump's demand would mean NASA bringing Crew-9 back to Earth before the Crew-10 capsule arrives, or SpaceX launching Crew-10 earlier than planned. While NASA appeared to affirm the astronaut's return plan remains unchanged, it did not answer a question on whether the Crew-10 launch date would be sooner.

Returning Crew-9 to Earth before Crew-10's arrival would mean NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who flew to the ISS with a Russian crew in September, would be the only American aboard the station, a rare staffing imbalance that NASA has said complicates maintenance of the station's U.S. components.

Though Starliner's development since 2019 has been a persistent challenge for Boeing, rife with engineering troubles and cost overruns, some Trump advisers in recent months have sought to blame Biden, although the former president had no involvement in Starliner's development.

NASA since 2020 has used SpaceX's Crew Dragon to ferry U.S. astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The spacecraft was developed under a more than $3 billion NASA contract under the agency's Commercial Crew Program, a program created under former U.S. president Barack Obama.

Boeing's Starliner was developed under the same program in a roughly $4.5 billion contract but has faced uncrewed testing mishaps and an array of engineering challenges.

Wilmore and Williams' mission marked Starliner's first crewed flight and was intended to be its final test before it conducts routine missions. But Starliner's propulsion system issues forced NASA to bring it back uncrewed in September and threw its development future into uncertainty.