Late Tuesday afternoon, Elon Musk put out a message on X saying that President Donald Trump had asked him to return the two Boeing Starliner astronauts who have been on the space station since June as soon as possible.

Posts by President Trump and Elon Musk roiled the space community, raising the prospect of an earlier-than-planned return for the Starliner crew.

While Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore’s situation is unusual, their return trip will be pretty routine, as they were already slated to fly home on a SpaceX capsule as part of a scheduled crew rotation.

SpaceX and Vast Space are looking for research ideas to fly aboard Vast's new Haven-1 space station launching later this year.

Liftoff is scheduled for 8:34 p.m. ET tonight (Jan. 29).

So the return of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore has never been a political story—until this week. And it's a good thing that the two will be in space tomorrow because, as attested to in the tagline for the movie Alien, in space, no one can hear you scream.

Elon Musk says Donald Trump has asked SpaceX to rescue two astronauts who have been in space for more than seven months — even though NASA has said there's a plan in place.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will conduct a spacewalk outside the International Space Station to swab the orbiting lab for evidence of microorganisms.

Designated as pilot of the Axiom Mission 4 to the ISS, Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla is looking forward to sharing his experience with “Bharatvaasis”, plans to take items representing the country on his spaceflight and hopes to perform some yoga poses aboard the orbital laboratory.

President Donald Trump took to social media this week to announce he had directed SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to “go get” two NASA astronauts who have been on a protracted stay at the International Space Station after their Boeing Starliner mission, which launched in June and was expected to last about eight days, ran into multiple technical issues.

Shubhanshu Shukla, an IAF officer and ISRO astronaut, has been selected as the pilot for Axiom Mission 4, scheduled for spring 2025.