SpaceX CEO Elon Musk alleged that the Biden administration rejected offers to bring NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore back to Earth earlier, following their safe return yesterday after more than nine months aboard the International Space Station.
“We definitely offered to return the astronauts earlier. There is no question about that,” Musk told Fox News. “The astronauts were only supposed to be there for eight days and they have been there for almost 10 months. Obviously, that doesn’t make any sense.”
Musk claimed SpaceX could have returned the astronauts “after a few months at most” but said their offer “was rejected for political reasons and that’s just a fact.”
Williams and Wilmore splashed down off the Florida coast at 3:27 am (IST) yesterday in SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, completing a mission that was originally planned to last only eight days when they launched on Boeing’s Starliner in June 2024.
After Starliner experienced helium leaks and thruster issues, NASA decided to reassign the astronauts to SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission, extending their stay on the ISS significantly.
In January, Musk wrote on X that President Donald Trump had requested SpaceX’s assistance: “The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so.”
Trump confirmed on TruthSocial that he asked Musk to “go get” the astronauts who were “virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration.”
Following their return, Musk congratulated the SpaceX and NASA teams for “another safe astronaut return” and thanked President Trump “for prioritizing this mission.”
