When asked about Elon Musk’s claims about bringing back the two “abandoned” astronauts “sooner”, Bonnie said, “I don’t think this should be politicised. This is science, they are doing what they normally do. I didn’t think the two astronauts think its politicised.”
“It’s what they do. They like doing this, and they’re honored to be able to go up on a long mission like this. They feel great about it,” Bonnie said.
Earlier, in an interview with Fox News, Elon Musk claimed that NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore were “left up” at International Space Station (ISS) for “political reasons, which is not good”.
Bonnie was further asked if she thinks the two astronauts are “stuck” in space. She replied, “It was kind of shocking at first to see that they weren’t going to come down. But these things happened. they took three tries to get up there, so it will take some time for them to come down.”
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, who have been on the International Space Station (ISS) since last June, may return to Earth on March 19. The two astronauts mentioned their date of return while speaking to CNN.
NASA said its Crew-10 launch is targeting launch on March 12, pending mission readiness and completion of the agency’s certification of flight readiness process.
“The Crew-9 mission is planned for return to Earth following a several day handover period with the newly arrived Crew-10 expedition crew,” NASA said.
Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams had launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on June 5, 2024. They were supposed to return to Earth withing eight days. However, their mission was extended by months after Starliner was detected with faults and returned without its crew in September.
Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore will now return to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on March 19, along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
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