NASA is bringing forward its rescue mission for its two stranded astronauts amid mounting political pressure.
Insiders say the space agency will bring Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore home around March 19 — about two weeks earlier than the original early April return.
By that date, they will have spent 286 days in space.
Williams and Willmore have been stuck on the International Space Station (ISS) since June 2024, bringing them close to eight months on the orbiting laboratory when they were originally scheduled for an eight-day stay.
The new plan should allow the spacecraft currently docked on the ISS depart earlier than previously scheduled.
The move comes less than one week since President Donald Trump told Elon Musk to ‘go get’ the pair after they were ‘virtually abandoned by the Biden administration.’
NASA sources told Ars Technica that this contingency plan was set into motion before Trump took office and was just recently greenlit.
Thursday’s announcement could be seen as a political win for the president.
NASA is expected to announce a new return date for astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stuck on the ISS for more than eight months
Musk posted on X on January 28 that Trump had ‘asked [SpaceX] to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the as soon as possible.’
The billionaire added that his company would do so, saying it was ‘terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.’
Trump confirmed the plan in a post on Truth Social: ‘I have just asked Elon Musk and [SpaceX] to ‘go get’ the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration.
‘They have been waiting for many months on [the ISS]. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon!!!’
The statements spurred confusion as they seemed to convey that Musk himself would be flying to the ISS (which is not the case) and undermined the fact that SpaceX had already been tasked with bringing Williams and Wilmore home.
With NASA now moving to bring the Starliner crew home two weeks earlier just days after these statements were made, it may appear as though the schedule change was politically motivated.
On June 5, the two NASA astronauts flew to the ISS about Boeing’s Starliner.
On June 5, Williams and Wilmore flew to the ISS for what was supposed to be an eight-day aboard the floating laboratory
But their spacecraft, Boeing’s Starliner, was mired by technical issues before, during and after the launch, prompting NASA to delay the astronauts’ return
However, the capsule was was mired by technical issues before, during and after the launch. NASA was forced to delay the astronauts’ return from the ISS while the it worked with Boeing to resolve the issues in the capsule docked on the ship.
Ultimately, Starliner was deemed unfit to carry Williams and Wilmore home, and the spacecraft returned to Earth uncrewed in September.
Since then, the two astronauts have been waiting to come home aboard the Crew-9 spacecraft, which arrived at the ISS later that same month.
But the Crew-9 spacecraft cannot bring the Starliner and Crew-9 astronauts back to Earth until SpaceX’s Crew-10 mission arrives at the ISS.
That’s because NASA protocol necessitates what’s known as a ‘handover period,’ in which a departing ISS crew overlaps with an incoming crew to share information with them and ensure a smooth transition between the two teams.
The SpaceX Crew-10 mission was initially scheduled to launch this month, but a technical issue with the new Dragon capsule SpaceX intended to use prompted NASA to push the launch back to March.
This decision further delayed Williams and Wilmore’s flight back to Earth from the ISS, with NASA giving an estimated return date of early April.
The change to their return date comes less than one week since President Donald Trump told Elon Musk to ‘go get’ the pair after they were ‘virtually abandoned by the Biden administration’
On January 28, Elon Musk made a post on his social media platform, X, stating that President Trump directed him to bring Williams and Wilmore home ‘as soon as possible’
Therefore, getting the Crew-10 mission off the ground sooner would also allow Williams and Wilmore to come home earlier.
The Dragon capsule SpaceX originally planned to use for this mission — called C213 — is still under development, and the Crew-10 mission was supposed to be its maiden voyage.
But SpaceX and NASA are currently working to resolve a technical issue with C213 Dragon, which may be related to batteries on the spacecraft, Ars Technica reported.
As a result, NASA decided that C213 would not be ready to launch until late April.
At this point, if NASA waited for C213 to be ready to launch the Crew-10 mission, the astronauts currently on board the ISS ‘would start to approach ‘redlines’ on food, water and other supplies.’
So, in the interest of returning NASA’s stranded astronauts to Earth ‘as soon as possible,’ NASA and SpaceX have reportedly decided to replace C213 with the C210 vehicle, which was used for the Crew-7 mission that returned to Earth in March 2024.
Known as ‘Endurance,’ this spacecraft will now be used to launch the Crew-10 mission no earlier than March 12, sources told Ars Technica.
If Crew-10 launches on time, Williams, Wilmore and the Crew-9 astronauts could return to Earth on March 19.
Prior to the Crew-10 spacecraft swap, Endurance was not scheduled to fly again until later this spring, when it would launch the private Axiom-4 mission to the space station. As a result, Axiom-4’s will be delayed, sources said.
