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 house the two astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as quickly as potential. We are going to accomplish that,” Musk wrote. “Horrible that the Biden administration left them there so lengthy.”
Now usually, at Ars Technica, it isn’t 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.
Initially, essentially the most believable clarification for that is that Elon is being Elon. “He’s trolling,” mentioned one in all my finest area coverage sources shortly after Musk’s tweet. In any case, 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 can 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—should not stranded on the Worldwide House 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 automobile in early June, have been briefly stranded. That mission was hobbled by technical points, together with issues with Starliner’s propulsion system. (Finally, Starliner flew house with out its crew.) Nevertheless, because the arrival of SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission with two empty seats in late September, Wilmore and Williams have had a protected trip house. The Dragon automobile 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 grow to be an in depth adviser to Trump, to say publicly.
It’s also potential that Musk was not trolling and that Trump requested SpaceX to return Wilmore and Williams earlier for political causes—specifically to, of their view, disgrace the Biden administration.
Neither NASA nor SpaceX responded instantly to a request for touch upon Tuesday night.
May They Come Again?
If Trump demanded that NASA carry the astronauts again now, the Crew-9 mission might return to Earth earlier. It’s presently scheduled to splash down within the Pacific Ocean in early April. In response to NASA, and the astronauts themselves, Wilmore and Williams are doing positive in area. They’ve loads of meals and garments, and loads of work to do. Privately, sources have informed 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. Actually, it’s a part of their jobs to sort out these sorts of contingencies.
The present return date is being pushed by the launch of the Crew-10 mission, additionally on a SpaceX automobile. This mission is flying a brand new Dragon spacecraft, and SpaceX beforehand requested for somewhat 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 satisfy this date, sources indicated that it’s potential SpaceX might must acceptable a special, beforehand flown Dragon—presumably the Dragon meant to be used by the Axiom-4 mission—to finish Crew-10.
