For causes that weren’t instantly clear, SpaceX founder Elon Musk took to his social media web site X on Tuesday night to make a perplexing space-based pronouncement.
“The @POTUS has requested @SpaceX to carry dwelling the two astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as quickly as attainable. We are going to achieve this,” Musk wrote. “Horrible that the Biden administration left them there so lengthy.”
Now usually, at Ars Technica, it’s not our coverage to jot down tales strictly based mostly on issues Elon Musk says on X. Nevertheless, this assertion was so declarative, and so consternation-inducing for NASA, it bears a little bit of explication.
To start with, essentially the most believable rationalization for that is that Elon is being Elon. “He’s trolling,” mentioned considered one of my greatest area coverage sources shortly after Musk’s tweet. In spite of everything, the tweet was despatched at 4:20 pm within the central time zone, the place SpaceX now has its headquarters.
Even whether it is trolling, it would nonetheless trigger complications inside NASA.
Foremost, NASA has gone to nice lengths to emphasize that the 2 astronauts referenced right here—Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams—will not be stranded on the Worldwide Area Station. There may be some debate about whether or not there was a interval final summer season when the pair, who flew to the area station on a Boeing Starliner car in early June, had been briefly stranded. That mission was hobbled by technical points, together with issues with Starliner’s propulsion system. (Finally, Starliner flew dwelling with out its crew.) Nevertheless, for the reason that arrival of SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission with two empty seats in late September, Wilmore and Williams have had a secure experience dwelling. The Dragon car is presently docked to the area station.
Then alongside comes Musk, with one of many world’s loudest microphones, shouting that NASA’s astronauts are stranded and that President Trump desires them saved. It’s a bombshell factor for the founding father of SpaceX, who has turn out to be a detailed adviser to Trump, to say publicly.
It is usually attainable that Musk was not trolling and that Trump requested SpaceX to return Wilmore and Williams earlier for political causes—particularly to, of their view, disgrace the Biden administration.
Neither NASA nor SpaceX responded instantly to a request for touch upon Tuesday night.
Might They Come Again?
If Trump demanded that NASA carry the astronauts again now, the Crew-9 mission may return to Earth earlier. It’s presently scheduled to splash down within the Pacific Ocean in early April. In accordance with NASA, and the astronauts themselves, Wilmore and Williams are doing tremendous in area. They’ve loads of meals and garments, and loads of work to do. Privately, sources have advised Ars the identical. Though Wilmore and Williams weren’t initially anticipating to spend 10 months in area, they’re taking no critical dangers in doing so. In actual fact, it’s a part of their jobs to deal with these sorts of contingencies.
The present return date is being pushed by the launch of the Crew-10 mission, additionally on a SpaceX car. This mission is flying a brand new Dragon spacecraft, and SpaceX beforehand requested for just a little extra time to course of and put together the spacecraft for its debut launch. This moved the goal for flying this mission from February to March 25. To fulfill this date, sources indicated that it’s attainable SpaceX could must applicable a unique, beforehand flown Dragon—probably the Dragon supposed to be used by the Axiom-4 mission—to finish Crew-10.