On Tuesday (local time) billionaire Elon Musk said that US President Donald Trump had asked him to facilitate the withdrawal of two Boeing Starlineer astronaut Sunita Williams and Buch Wilmor, which has been at the space station since June 2024 as soon as possible.
The CEO of SpaceX claimed that it was “terrible” that the pair was left “trapped” by the former President Joe Biden’s administration at the International Space Station (ISS), although for so long, even though NASA has already SpaceX was planted in the months of SpaceX to return the astronauts as part of its crew -9 mission.
Musk said in a post on X, “@Potus has asked @Spacex to bring 2 astronauts stranded at @Space_station as soon as possible. We will do so.”
@Potus Has asked @Spacex 2 astronauts stranded to bring home @space Station As soon as possible. We will do this.
It is terrible that the Biden administration left him for so long.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 28 January, 2025
“It is terrible that the Biden administration left him for so long,” he said.
NASA has constantly stated that astronauts are not trapped and are healthy, and are in good spirits.
Buch Wilmore and Sunita Williams launched the ISS in June 2024 at the Starlineer spacecraft of Boeing. The flight, which was only up to 10 days, experienced a rocky journey. After reaching the space station, NASA and Boeing worked for weeks for better understanding problems in the spacecraft, but eventually decided that it was very risky to return the startlineer with the crew.
Subsequently, in August 2024, the Space Agency announced that it had asked Spacex to ride Williams and Wilmor to ride in the SpaceX Crew -9 capsule. Two astronauts slipped into Crew -9, with NASA removed two of the four members of the crew, who were ready to launch on the SpaceX dragon in September.
Instead, only an astronaut and cosmonott were riding on a flight to make a place for Williams and Wilmore, which were set to return home at the end of the campaign in February 2025.
However, there was another delay in December, as SpaceX required more time to work on the latest dragon spacecraft, which would debut with the launch of Crew -10.
This meant that Crew -9, including two Boeing astronauts, would not return home by the end of March after Crew -10 reaches the ISS.
But Musk’s latest post suggested that the crew Dragon Capsules, named ‘Freedom’, may depart from ISS, with Wilmor and Williams.
