In a post on X on Tuesday evening, Elon Musk said President Trump had asked his rocket company SpaceX to bring home “as soon as possible” two NASA astronauts who have been on the International Space Station since June.
SpaceX, in fact, is already scheduled to bring those two astronauts home, but no earlier than late March, along with two other astronauts who are currently on board.
Hours later, Mr. Trump in his own post on the website Truth Social, confirmed the request, stating that “Elon will soon be on his way,” without setting a time frame for a return trip.
On Wednesday afternoon, NASA said in a statement that it was working to safely return Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore “as soon as practical,” while also preparing for the mission to bring up the next group of astronauts.”
To avoid understaffing of the space station, NASA typically sends up the replacement crew before the current astronauts leave.
But the agency’s statement did not clarify the meaning of “as soon as practical” or promise that the return would be any sooner than the current schedule of late March.
The astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, docked at the space station in June. Their trip was not supposed to last much longer than a week or two in orbit as part of a test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. But because Starliner’s propulsion system malfunctioned during the trip there, NASA repeatedly extended the pair’s stay as engineers tried to figure out what had gone wrong.
In his posting, Mr. Musk added, “Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”
In his Truth Social post, Mr. Trump echoed that sentiment, claiming that Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore had been “virtually abandoned in space by the Biden administration.”
In fact, the space station has been resupplied four times since the two arrived, and Ms. Williams is the current commander of the space station.
Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator during the Biden administration, did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Lingering unease with the vehicle led NASA officials to decide that Starliner would return to Earth without Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore, who remained in orbit as part of the space station crew. At that time, Mr. Nelson said the foremost concern of NASA officials was the safety of Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore.
The Starliner landed without problems on Sept. 7.
Two extra astronauts in orbit led NASA and its international partners to juggle the next crew heading to the space station on a SpaceX Crew Dragon, a mission called Crew-9.
Astronauts generally spend about half a year on the space station before returning on the same spacecraft they flew on to get there. But because Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore no longer had a ride home, two of the four astronauts originally assigned for Crew-9 were left on the ground when the mission launched on Sept. 28. That left two seats for Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore for the return trip, which was then expected in February.
If the Crew-9 astronauts return early, before the next set of astronauts launch, that would hamper scientific research on the space station and would potentially leave the smaller crew overwhelmed in case of an emergency.
If something on the NASA side of the outpost broke and required a spacewalk to repair, there would just be one NASA astronaut aboard — Don Pettit — to perform the task. That would be dangerous, as spacewalks are usually conducted in pairs. The two Russian astronauts on board could help, but they are less familiar with those systems.
For the next astronaut launch, Crew-10, SpaceX has been planning to use a brand-new Crew Dragon.
But in December, NASA announced that SpaceX needed more time to finish manufacturing and testing of the new capsule and that the return of Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore had been delayed again, to late March.
NASA has avoided calling the astronauts “stranded,” as Mr. Musk did in his post. The space agency has repeatedly insisted that Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore are in good health and that their extended stay falls well within the range of other astronauts’ times in orbit.
Speeding up the return might present NASA officials with difficult choices. They could leave the station understaffed, with just three astronauts — two Russians, one American — instead of the usual complement of seven, until the new Crew Dragon arrives.
In principle, NASA could have just Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore return and leave the other astronauts who launched in September in orbit. But that would leave those astronauts without a way to get back to Earth if they needed to evacuate.
Or SpaceX could use one of its older Crew Dragons, possibly bumping astronauts from a scheduled flight to the space station in the spring on a private mission run by the company Axiom Space of Houston.
