Billionaire and Tech Titan Elon Musk shared his congratulations with SpaceX and NASA after the Rescue of two astronauts Stranded at the international space station for about the past nine months.
“Thanks to the excellent work of the SpaceX team that works with NASA, the astronauts are now safe at home. And so congratulations on the SpaceX NASA teams with excellent work,” Musk said during an exclusive interview “Hannity” Tuesday.
The founder of SpaceX and the face of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) also offered a “enormous appreciation” to President Donald Trump “for prioritizing and accelerating the return.”
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have been at the international space station since June 2024. Their mission was only a week after the launch of Boeing’s first astronaut flight. However, after the spacecraft had experienced technical problems and NASA had decided it unsafe to come back to Earth with the astronauts on board, Wilmore and Williams remained stuck at the international space station for months.
Wilmore, Williams, Crew-9 Commander Nick Hague and Russian Kosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov were able to return to Earth on Tuesday, with a splashdown off the coast of Florida just before 6 p.m.
The return of Wilmore and Williams became a political issue for the Trump government, in which Musk previously told Fox News -Gastheer Sean Hannity on 18 February that Biden left the astronauts in space for “political reasons”.
Shortly after he took office, Trump has the assignment Musk with bringing the two astronauts home, who, according to him, was “abandoned” by the Biden administration.
Trump also destroyed former President Joe Biden because he did not act before.
“I have just asked Elon Musk and @Spacex to get the 2 brave astronauts who have almost been given up in space by the BIDEN administration ‘. Posted Trump at that time.
In a post-landing news conference with SpaceX and NASA officials on Tuesday, Deputy Adjunct administrator, NASA Space Operations Mission Directorate Joel Montalbano was asked about the claims of Trump and Musk that the Biden administration did not want to reduce the Starliner crew for political reasons.
“Yes, so I was not involved in conversations with the previous administration,” said Montalbano. “It was clear that we had a request from the current administration, and the results you saw are what we saw today with the landing of Crew-9.”
Click here to get the Fox News app
Hannity printed Musk on politics behind the astronauts’ Delayed return and Musk established the record directly on his communication with the previous Biden administration.
“We have absolutely offered to return the astronauts earlier. There is no doubt about that,” said Musk.
“The astronauts should only be there for eight days, and they have been there for almost ten months. So that is of course not logical. SpaceX could have returned the astronauts at most after a few months, and we made that offer to the BIDD administration. It was rejected for political reasons, and that is just a fact.”
Jonathan Serrie, Landon Mion, Diana Stancy, Christina Shaw and Reuters from Fox News have contributed to this report.
