Two astronauts returned to Earth on Tuesday after being stuck on the International Space Station (ISS) for nine months due to several technical faults with their Boeing Starliner spacecraft.
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore undocked from the ISS aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule at 9.05am GST, along with two other astronauts, and splashed down off the coast of Florida at 6.57pm local time.
Their departure marked the end of a mission that was supposed to last about eight days. US President Donald Trump ordered billionaire Elon Musk to bring the astronauts home, blaming predecessor Joe Biden for abandoning them.
Mr Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Monday to say that he had spoken to Nasa’s acting administrator, Janet Petro, who was co-ordinating with “our team of highly respected scientists, space engineers and various other geniuses” to bring the astronauts home.
“This began when I asked Elon Musk to go up and get the abandoned astronauts, because the Biden administration was incapable of doing so,” Mr Trump said. “They shamefully forgot about the astronauts, because they considered it to be a very embarrassing event for them – another thing I inherited from that failed group of incompetents.”
The Crew-9 return, of which Ms Williams and Mr Wilmore became a part after their own return was delayed, was made possible after a replacement group, Crew-10, arrived at the ISS on Sunday.
Their return became a priority for the new US administration. Mr Trump and Mr Musk said they offered Nasa an earlier opportunity to bring the astronauts back but claimed it was declined by the Biden administration.
Dr Gordon Osinski, an Earth sciences professor and planetary geologist at the Western University in Canada, told The National that “it has always been the plan” for a SpaceX vehicle to bring the astronauts back after the Starliner suffered technical issues.
“I can only speculate on what President Trump expects to gain from this, but the facts are that the plan to return Sunita Williams and Barry [Butch] Wilmore from the ISS were actually made under the previous administration, well before the President was sworn in,” said Dr Osinski. “The original schedule under the previous administration was actually for this flight to occur in February, so perhaps this is the urgency.”
During a video media conference held with the astronauts on the ISS on March 6, Mr Wilmore said they had “heard some of these different things that have been said”. He added: “I can tell you, at the outset, all of us have the utmost respect for Mr Musk and obviously [we have] respect and admiration for our President of the United States, Donald Trump. The words they've said, politics, I mean, that's part of life. We understand that. And there's an important reason why we have a political system and the political system that we do have, and we're behind it 100 per cent.”
Nasa's struggle of getting 'taxi' options into orbit
Ms Williams and Mr Wilmore began their mission aboard the Boeing Starliner capsule on June 5 as part of the first crewed test flight under Nasa’s Commercial Crew Programme, which aims to give the agency “taxi” options for its astronauts to fly into orbit. SpaceX, however, continues to be only reliable option in the US, having flown 10 crews to the ISS for the agency so far.
Josh Colwell, associate dean of the College of Sciences at The University of Central Florida, told The National that the technical problems with the Starliner vehicle “are the kinds of things that normally come up during a testing programme”.
“This was a test mission, and the result of that test was the discovery of some subsystems that need work before full flight certification of the vehicle. It is better to have multiple options for any activity, and access to space is no exception,” Dr Colwell said.
“Nasa, and the space programme as a whole, will be better off with multiple options for getting people to space. Nothing about this particular test flight should affect the plan that Nasa had in place for commercial crew operations, but I cannot predict what decisions the government or agency will make regarding these programmes and whether they have anything to do with the Starliner test mission.”
Mr Musk leads the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, which has been charged with reducing federal spending. Nasa is expected to be affected, with reports suggesting there could be a 50 per cent cut in the agency’s spending on scientific activities.
On Monday, Nasa was given a one-week extension to a White House directive to develop a plan of restructuring the agency’s workforce, which includes “large-scale layoffs”.
The future of the Starliner programme is also uncertain. Boeing has developed the Starliner for nearly a decade but the programme has faced various technical issues over the years. On this first crewed test flight, the spacecraft suffered helium leaks and thruster issues.
“The fact that it has taken so long to return Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore from the ISS is an excellent demonstration as to why we need more options to transport crew and cargo to the ISS,” said Dr Osinski. “There needs to be redundancy in case of unexpected events.”
Cost of progress
There is a lot of uncertainty about the US space programme, including how potential budget cuts would affect Nasa and its partners. Mr Musk has previously called the ISS to be retired early so that resources can be redirected to preparations for crewed missions to Mars.
The Planetary Society, a US non-profit organisation, has described the proposed 50 per cent cut to Nasa’s scientific activities budget as an “extinction event” for space science and exploration.
Lin Kayser, co-founder of Dubai company Leap 71, which develops artificial intelligence models to generate rocket engines, told The National that “a cut of that magnitude would be disastrous for the US”.
“Many current and future programmes depend on Nasa’s personnel and institutional expertise,” Mr Kayser said. “I don’t think it will happen at that scale, though. But projects will face increased scrutiny, especially under the efficiency standards promoted by figures like Elon Musk.”
He said if Jared Isaacman, the billionaire who founded payment processing company Shift4, was confirmed as Nasa's new Nasa administrator, he was unlikely to “pursue anything radical”.
“But right now, a lot remains uncertain,” Mr Kayser said. “Private companies have little incentive to fund pure science missions, though there may be opportunities for Nasa to outsource certain aspects. In the current climate, it’s difficult to predict where this will lead.”
