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Trump asks Musk's SpaceX to return NASA astronauts from

ISS

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Astronauts were already assigned a SpaceX flight home

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Trump offers no details on how the return would change

By Joey Roulette

WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump

said Tuesday night he had asked Elon Musk's SpaceX to return two

NASA astronauts from the International Space Station, who were

already scheduled to fly back on a SpaceX capsule in March.

Musk earlier on Tuesday said Trump had asked him to return

the two astronauts "as soon as possible," suggesting a change to

NASA's current plan for a late March return. "We will do so,"

Musk said.

"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," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "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!!!"

His demand that SpaceX retrieve veteran NASA astronauts

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been assigned a SpaceX

ride home since August, was an unusual intervention by a U.S.

president into NASA's operations that caught many agency

officials by surprise, two officials said.

A NASA spokesman did not immediately return requests for

comment.

Wilmore and Williams flew Boeing's ( BA ) Starliner spacecraft to

the ISS last summer for an eight-day test mission that instead

has lasted nearly a year because of problems with the craft's

propulsion system.

NASA in August, during President Joe Biden's administration,

deemed Starliner too risky to bring them back to Earth and

tapped SpaceX to return them on a Crew Dragon spacecraft.

That craft is already docked with the space station, having

flown there for NASA's Crew-9 astronaut rotation mission in

September with empty seats for Wilmore and Williams.

The astronauts' original February departure date on Crew-9

was delayed to late March because SpaceX needed more time "to

complete processing" of a new Crew Dragon capsule that will

replace theirs for the Crew-10 mission, NASA said in December.

The agency has a delicately coordinated ISS schedule, and an

early return might leave the station's U.S. contingent

understaffed.

It was unclear whether Trump's demand would mean NASA

bringing Crew-9 back to Earth before the Crew-10 capsule

arrives, or SpaceX launching Crew-10 earlier than planned.

Returning Crew-9 to Earth before Crew-10's arrival would

mean NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who flew to the ISS with a

Russian crew in September, would be the only American aboard the

station, a rare staffing imbalance that NASA has said

complicates maintenance of the station's U.S. components.

Wilmore and Williams are among seven astronauts on the ISS,

and they remain healthy and busy with routine scientific

research aboard the station, NASA has said.

Though Starliner's development since 2019 has been a

persistent challenge for Boeing ( BA ), rife with engineering troubles

and cost overruns, some Trump advisers in recent months have

sought to blame Biden, although the former president had no

involvement in Starliner's development.