Two astronauts stuck in space are back on Earth: NPR

Today, SpaceX capsules are scheduled to transport four astronauts to the International Space Station. Their arrival will clear the path of two astronauts labelled “stuck” to eventually return to Earth.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Snie Williams were due to spend about a week at the space station when they came up last June. However, they stayed on the ISS after the experimental Boeing capsule got on a malfunctioning track.

Over the past month, President Trump and his close adviser Elon Musk have repeatedly argued that the decision to leave Williams and Wilmore in space was politically motivated.

“Biden got embarrassed by what happened and said, ‘Let them be there,'” Trump said during the availability of press in his oval office on March 6th.

However, some former astronauts and NASA officials have denied the political motivation behind Williams and Wilmore’s long stay. Here’s what you need to know about how they ended up at the station and why they are finally home now.

Strictly speaking, today’s launch is not a rescue mission

The SpaceX Dragon capsule heading to the station tonight will bring new crews onto orbit for the station, but in reality it is not the capsule that will bring Williams and Wilmore home.

The capsules the duo uses to return to Earth have been attached to the space station since September last year. The capsule, built by SpaceX, also arrives carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hag and Russian astronaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, and has two additional seats for Williams and Wilmore.

They could also return the astronaut at any point in the last six months or so.

“They had SpaceX Dragon as an emergency lifeboat, so they’re going to get them back when they needed it,” says former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly.

Instead of coming back soon, Williams and Wilmore were fully integrated into the crew of the Expedition 72 on the space station. Williams became station commander in September, and both she and Wilmore have been working on experimenting and performing spacecraft while they were there.

Musk and Trump are promoting the theory that Williams and Wilmore are stuck on political grounds, but former astronauts and NASA officials have denied the claim.

It appears that President Trump was the first to claim that astronauts were stuck on January 28th for political reasons.

“We asked Elon Musk and @Spacex to “Go Get” two brave astronauts who were effectively abandoned in space by the Biden administration,” the president wrote about social media platform Truth Social.

“It’s scary that the Biden administration has left them there for so long,” Musk posted the same day on his social media platform X.

The duo has detailed the claim several times. Most notably, during an interview with Sean Hannity in February:

“They’re left in space,” Trump told Hannity.

“Yes, they were left there for political reasons, but that’s not good,” Musk added.

Things quickly ughed with X when former Space Station commander Andreas Morgensen called the allegations a “lie.”

In his response, Musk calls Morgenson a “idiot” and says he directly offered to return the astronaut more quickly, and that he was rejected by the Biden administration.

Former NASA officials have challenged the claim.

“I don’t know who he spoke to,” Pam Melloi, a former NASA assistant manager, told Bloomberg in an interview. “It wasn’t (NASA administrator) Bill (Nelson), it wasn’t me. It wasn’t a senior leader at headquarters.”

“It certainly didn’t catch my attention,” Nelson told the Washington Post. “There was no discussion about that at all. Maybe he (Elon Musk) sent a message to someone at a lower level.”

NASA says there’s a technical reason why Williams and Wilmore are on the space station

NASA officials today are less confrontational, but they still cited multiple technical reasons to keep Williams and Wilmore at the station.

“Our leadership at NASA was trying to make sure we were thinking everything at a technical level, and that’s what we did,” Ken Bowersox, NASA’s space operations assistant manager, said at a press conference Friday.

Bowersox and Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stitch cited cost and safety as the dominant reason to keep the two veteran astronauts away longer than planned. Bowersox said sending extra capsules or early return of capsules was “excluded fairly quickly” due to budget concerns.

There were also technical issues raised by the decision of Boeing Capsules Williams and Wilmore to fly into space. When the capsule returned to Earth in the Sky in August, Williams and Wilmore literally lost their seats.

Stitch says it was important to have a custom fit seat mounted on the spacecraft to ensure that the two astronauts were not injured during re-entry and landing. New custom sheets have been installed on the Dragon Capsules that arrived in September to ensure a smooth return.

“When we laid it all out, the best option was really what we’re on for now,” Stitch said.

Williams and Wilmore look happy when they get home, but they’re doing well in space

“Everyday is interesting because we are in space, and it’s a lot of fun,” Suni Williams said at a press conference from the ISS on March 4th.

Wilmore added that astronauts are well aware that space travel is risky.

“The mission of the Space Station is… something we believe in deeply,” Wilmore added. “It’s that belief that allows us to take those risks.”

Long-term missions can be psychologically tricky, says Scott Kelly, a former astronaut who spent 340 days on the space station. But he adds, and there’s no doubt that Williams and Willmore could handle it.

“They’re experts,” Kelly says. “I’m sure they’re not that bad with this.”