{"id":9926,"date":"2025-01-28T23:37:23","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T15:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/musk-president-trump-calls-for-fast-track-return-to-earth-of-the-former-starliner-astronauts\/"},"modified":"2025-01-28T23:37:23","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T15:37:23","slug":"musk-president-trump-calls-for-fast-track-return-to-earth-of-the-former-starliner-astronauts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/musk-president-trump-calls-for-fast-track-return-to-earth-of-the-former-starliner-astronauts\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk: President Trump calls for fast-track return to Earth of the former Starliner astronauts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
NASA\u2019s Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams inside the vestibule between the forward port on the International Space Station\u2019s Harmony module and Boeing\u2019s Starliner spacecraft. Image: NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a late afternoon post to X, SpaceX founder Elon Musk stirred up some confusion and consternation among the space community.<\/p>\n

Without any indication ahead of time, Musk suggested that the Crew Dragon capsule, named \u2018Freedom,\u2019 may make an early departure from the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams onboard. <\/span><\/p>\n

The pair have been on orbit since June 2024 when they arrived on the Boeing Starliner spacecraft as part of the Crew Flight Test mission. Ultimately, NASA made the determination that they would come home on Dragon because of lingering uncertainties surrounding Starliner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so,\u201d Musk wrote shortly after 5 p.m. EST. \u201cTerrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Boeing\u2019s Starliner spacecraft that launched NASA\u2019s Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, seen from a window on the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft. Image: NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA leadership stressed repeatedly and in multiple forums that Wilmore and Williams are not \u201cstranded,\u201d but rather that Starliner didn\u2019t have enough assurances around it to support a crewed trip back to Earth.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft experienced issues with its propulsion system and experienced helium leaks during the trip to the space station, but was ultimately able to return to Earth safely. Because of ongoing work, Starliner hasn\u2019t been certified to fly full, six-month crew rotation missions. It remains unclear when it will next fly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a unanimous decision not to return them on the Starliner,\u201d said former NASA Administrator Bill Nelson during a reporter roundtable in December. \u201cWe finally knew with all that extra testing that they had done at White Sands, we knew what the cause was of why that valve was not performing, but we did not know why and that was just not worth taking the risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of the decision to bring Starliner home autonomously and without its crew, NASA\u2019s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) pivoted and removed NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson from the crew lineup to make space for Wilmore and Williams to come home.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov (left) will assist commander Nick Hague (right) during the Crew 9\u2019s climb to space. The two empty seats will be used by Starliner commander Barry \u201cButch\u201d Wilmore and pilot Sunita Williams when all four return to Earth next March. Image: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The duo, along with original Crew-9 members NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexandr Gorbunov, were originally scheduled to undock from the ISS in late February, following the arrival of the Crew-10 quartet.<\/p>\n

However, an issue with the Crew Dragon designed to carry the Crew-10 mission to orbit, which happens to be the fifth and final planned Dragon to enter service, caused a launch delay to no earlier than late March.<\/p>\n

\u201cFabrication, assembly, testing, and final integration of a new spacecraft is a painstaking endeavor that requires great attention to detail,\u201d said Steve Stich, NASA\u2019s CCP manager said in a Dec. 17 blog post. \u201cWe appreciate the hard work by the SpaceX team to expand the Dragon fleet in support of our missions and the flexibility of the station program and expedition crews as we work together to complete the new capsule\u2019s readiness for flight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spaceflight Now reached out to NASA to see if it is planning on making any changes regarding the timing of either the Crew-9 return or the Crew-10 launch and is waiting to hear back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA\u2019s Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams inside the vestibule between the forward port on the International Space Station\u2019s Harmony module and Boeing\u2019s Starliner spacecraft. Image: NASA. In a late afternoon post to X, SpaceX founder Elon Musk stirred up some confusion and consternation among the space community. Without any indication […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[670,1163,235,1023,1164,822,717,316],"class_list":["post-9926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-boeing","tag-butch-wilmore","tag-crew-dragon","tag-crew-10","tag-crew-9","tag-cst-100-starliner-crew-flight-test","tag-international-space-station","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9926"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}