Stranded NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams successfully undocked from the International Space Station at 1:05 a.m. Tuesday and began their long-awaited journey back home after more than nine months in space.
Wilmore and Williams are returning home in a SpaceX capsule with fellow NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian astronaut Alexander Gorbunov. They are expected to splashdown off the Florida coast at 5:57 p.m. on Tuesday.
Hours before their departure from the ISS, President Donald Trump said he had been in contact with NASA’s acting administrator, Janet Petro, who is coordinating the mission to bring Wilmore and Williams back home.
“She is coordinating our Team of highly respected Scientists, Space Engineers, and various other ‘geniuses,’ who has agreed to let our Astronauts come home long prior to the two week period originally approved by NASA,” Trump wrote, in part. “Janet was great. She said, ‘Let’s bring them home NOW, Sir!’ — And I thanked her.”
The president also took a swipe at his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, and accused him of “forgetting” about Wilmore and Williams. Trump also spoke about Elon Musk and SpaceX’s involvement in the return mission.
“This began when I asked Elon Musk to go up and get the abandoned Astronauts, because the Biden Administration was incapable of doing so,” Trump claimed. “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.”
