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

President Trump on Tuesday announced that he has asked SpaceX founder Elon Musk to “go get” two NASA astronauts who have been aboard the International Space Station since June awaiting a return trip to Earth.

A spokesperson with NASA, which oversees SpaceX’s flights to the ISS, said “NASA and SpaceX are expeditiously working to safely return the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore as soon as practical, while also preparing for the launch of Crew-10 to complete a handover between expeditions.”

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.

The founder of SpaceX said President Trump had asked his company to return two astronauts aboard the space station to Earth “as soon as possible.” NASA said it would do that “as soon as practical.”

Starliner co-pilot Sunita Williams is now the world's most experienced female spacewalker, moving up to No. 4 overall.

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

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.

NASA is set to collaborate with SpaceX to return astronauts from the ISS amidst plans for further cosmic exploration. Samples from asteroid Bennu suggest the presence of life's building blocks. Meanwhile,

IAF group captain Shubhanshu Shukla is designated as pilot of the Axiom Mission 4 to the International Space Station (ISS).

Starliner co-pilot Sunita Williams is now the world's most experienced female spacewalker, moving up to number four overall.