NASA Shares Why Stranded Astronauts Weren’t Rescued From Space Station Sooner

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are finally coming home after an eight-day test flight turned into a nine-month stay onboard the International Space Station, and NASA officials affirmed on March 7 that the extended stay was the best possible option.

This is what NASA wanted and what fit their plans, Steve Stich, manager of the Commercial Crew program said, adding that the plan allowed them to utilize Wilmore and Williams “in a very productive manner” on the space station and ensure “a seamless integration to keep the science going,”

In June 2024, the two astronauts were first to fly the Boeing CST-100 Starliner, but technical issues caused them to take refuge in the station while the Starliner returned home.

They are set to return home aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule as part of the conclusion of NASA’s Crew-9 mission, pending a multi-day transfer of the space station’s command to the astronauts of the upcoming Crew-10 mission set to launch on March 12.

Their continued work aboard the orbiting laboratory has been the subject of controversy, especially recently when SpaceX founder Elon Musk said on Joe Rogan’s podcast that the two astronauts could have returned home a lot sooner.

Musk reiterated his comments in a subsequent post on social media platform X, stating, “The astronauts were only supposed to be up there for eight days and now have been there for eight months. SpaceX could have sent up another Dragon and brought them home six months ago, but the Biden White House (not NASA) refused to allow it.”

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He went on to share a clip of Wilmore taking questions from the space station and confirming that SpaceX did propose an earlier return that never manifested, but clarified he had no knowledge of the actual details.

The controversy was addressed on March 7 during a pre-launch press conference on the upcoming Crew-10 mission.

“There may have been some conversations that I wasn’t part of,” said Ken Bowersox, associate administrator of Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington.

“Our leadership at NASA was trying to make sure that we considered everything just at a technical level, and that’s what we did,” he added.

Other NASA and SpaceX officials further elaborated that Wilmore and Williams’s impending return was the best option available, especially in terms of the agency’s larger goal of ensuring that work aboard the station continues.

“When we laid all that out, the best option was really the one that we’re embarking upon now,” Stich said.

The plan to get them home included sending Crew-9 Mission to the space station with only two of the four seats filled. Mission planners also had to transport the proper seat liners that needed to be fitted to Wilmore and Williams to ensure a safe re-entry, as well as a spacesuit for Wilmore.

In the meantime, they became crew members of Expedition 73; roles they were prepared for in case their test flight went awry.

“We actually had Butch and Suni go through long-duration space station training well in advance, and when they were assigned, we got suit parts, space suit parts for them, and I actually put them on board many months before they launched,” said Dana Weigel, International Space Station Program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. ”So we had hip-pocket contingency plans that would allow them to be long duration crew members well before they launched.”

When asked if comments made by President Donald Trump played a factor in expediting the rescue mission, officials said that the upcoming launch dates were already being considered at their window of opportunity amid an extremely busy spring at Kennedy Space Center.

However, they were happy to have the president’s attention.

“The president’s interests sure added energy to the conversation, and it’s great to have a president who’s interested in what we’re doing,” Bowersox said.