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President Donald Trump called on SpaceX leader Elon Musk to “go get” two American astronauts who have been stuck on the International Space Station.
Trump shared the challenge to Musk in a post to his Truth Social account late Tuesday.
“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 @Space Station. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon!!!” Trump wrote.
Musk included a statement to his X platform concerning the fate of the two astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.
“The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so. Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long,” Musk wrote.
The two astronauts are set to return aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft that arrived at the station in September as part of the Crew-9 mission, alongside NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
Their return was initially planned for early March but was postponed due to issues with the Crew Dragon assigned to the next ISS mission, Crew-10. On Dec. 17, NASA announced that the Crew-10 launch, originally scheduled for February, would be pushed to late March to allow SpaceX more time to complete a new Crew Dragon spacecraft. As a result, the Crew-9 return is now expected to be delayed until early April, according to Space News.
“That was a unanimous decision not to return them on the Starliner,” said former NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in December. “We 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.”
NASA has not announced plans for a change in the current situation for the two astronauts, the outlet added.
Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk commented on the announcement in a post to his X account.
“President Trump has asked Elon Musk and SpaceX to retrieve two NASA astronauts stranded in space, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Elon has accepted the mission. Leave no man behind,” Kirk wrote.
