NASA Astronauts Deny Being ‘Abandoned,’ Set to Return on March 19

Refuting accusations by US President Donald Trump and SpaceX head Elon Musk that they had been “abandoned” astronaut Butch Wilmore stated, “That’s been the rhetoric. That’s been the narrative from day one: stranded, abandoned, stuck — and I get it. We both get.
NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore on board the ISS

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams will at last travel back home on March 19 after eight months at the International Space Station (ISS) due to a hitch with their spacecraft. India-born astronaut Willimas and Wilmore in an interview with CNN agreed that NASA’s Crew-10 mission is ready to blast off on March 10 from the Earth and drop the duo on March 19.

“The plan is that Crew-10 will launch on March 12, do a turnover for a week, and we will return on March 19,” Wilmore said in the interview.
Williams and Wilmore have been aboard the space station since June 2024 after arriving on a Boeing Co Starliner capsule, the first crew to fly on the vehicle as part of a critical test flight that was supposed to last about a week.
But Starliner encountered many technical problems with its thruster engines in its flight and therefore NASA planned to bring Boeing’s capsule back to Earth unfilled, and Williams and Wilmore would have to come back on a subsequent SpaceX capsule instead.

The Crew-10 mission will carry NASA astronauts Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, to the ISS on a six-month mission.

This will be followed by a week-long handover procedure in which the present Space Station Commander, Williams will relinquish command, this is to enable smooth handover.
Williams and Wilmore will climb aboard the Dragon spacecraft that brought the Crew-10 to the ISS and on March 19 undock.

While being interviewed, the astronauts explained that they are not “stranded” in low-Earth orbit on board the ISS nor feel “stuck” or “abandoned.”

Refuting assertions by US President Donald Trump and SpaceX owner Elon Musk that they were “abandoned” Wilmore said, “That’s been the rhetoric. That’s been the narrative from day one: stranded, abandoned, stuck — and I get it. We both get it… But that is, again, not what our human spaceflight program is about.”
“Help us flip the script. Let’s flip it to ‘prepared and committed.’ That’s what we like,” he further added.Williams concurring with Wilmore stated, ” “We knew that we would probably find some things (wrong with Starliner), and we found some stuff, and so that was not a surprise.”

This move to retrieve the astronauts comes after Trump and Musk had released individual statements in January announcing that SpaceX would “go get” two International Space Station astronauts “as soon as possible.” Note that SpaceX had a major role in building the Crew Dragon capsule under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program that would transport the two back to Earth.

Steve Stich, Commercial Crew Program manager at NASA in a statement indicated, “Human spaceflight is replete with unforeseen challenges. Our ability to operate with flexibility is facilitated by the phenomenal partnership between NASA and SpaceX and the responsiveness SpaceX continues to exhibit to meet safely the agency’s evolving requirements,.”