Washington DC:
US President Donald Trump and his advisor Elon Musk have claimed that NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore were “abandoned” at International Space Station (ISS) for “political reasons” and that the previous Biden administration was “going to leave them in space.” The remarks were made when Trump and Musk sat down for their first joint interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity.
When Hannity asked the President and his advisor about the “two astronauts that I think were abandoned”, Musk said, “At the President’s request, we – or instruction, we are accelerating the return of the astronauts, which was postponed, kind of, to a ridiculous degree.”
“They got left in space,” Trump chimed in.
Musk seconded the President’s claim and said, ” Yes, they were left up there for political reasons, which is not good.”
When asked about Space X’s mission to bring back Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, Musk said, “Well, we don’t want to be complacent, but we have brought astronauts back from the space station many times before, and always with success.”
When asked about the timeline of the mission, Musk said, “I think it’s about – about four weeks to bring them back.”
“You now have the go-ahead,” Trump said.
“Yes. Well, thanks to you,” replied Musk.
Trump then claimed that Musk’s company didn’t have the go-ahead with the Biden administration. “He (Biden) was going to leave him in space. I think he was going to leave them in space,” the Republican added.
The Mission
Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams launched to the ISS aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft in June 2024. The flight, which was intended to last only 10 days, experienced a rocky journey. After arriving at the space station, NASA and Boeing worked for weeks to better understand the problems in the spacecraft but it was ultimately decided that it was too risky to return the Startliner with the crew.
Following this, in August 2024, the space agency announced that it had asked SpaceX to bring Williams and Wilmore home aboard the SpaceX Crew-9 capsule. SpaceX, the private company founded by billionaire Musk, has been flying regular missions every six months to allow the rotation of ISS crews.
However, on January 20 Musk said Trump had asked him to facilitate the return of the two Boeing Starliner astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been on the space station since June 2024, as soon as possible.
The SpaceX CEO claimed that it was “terrible” that the pair were left “stranded” at the International Space Station (ISS) by former President Joe Biden’s administration for so long, even though NASA had already roped in SpaceX months ago to return both astronauts as part of its Crew-9 mission.