'Not Stranded, Not Stuck, Not Abandoned' — Sunita Williams And Butch Wilmore Speak From Space, Share Return Date
Astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore deny feeling abandoned aboard the space station and emphasise their preparedness for extended stays.
NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been in space since June 2024 after being launched on the first crewed test flight of Boeing Starliner that developed a snag later, said Thursday they are not "stranded" in low-Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station, and that they don't feel "stuck" or "abandoned" either.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump had recently said the previous US administration led by Joe Biden had left two veteran astronauts high and dry.
Williams And Wilmore, however, did not give any such indication while speaking to CNN journalist Anderson Cooper on Thursday.
Asked about the claims made by President Trump and Musk, Wilmore said during the interview: “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.”
He added: "We don’t feel abandoned, we don’t feel stuck, we don’t feel stranded."
Both the astronauts have in the past maintained that they did not feel stuck aboard the orbiting lab, and that they were happy to have got the opportunity to spend more time aboard the ISS. Williams was appointed the commander of the space station, and she has since broken the record of highest total spacewalking time by a woman astronaut, clocking 62 hours and 6 minutes.
Speaking to CNN, Wilmore also made a request to "change the rhetoric". "Help us change the narrative. Let’s change it to ‘prepared and committed'. That’s what we prefer,” he said.
Sunita Williams, meanwhile, reiterated her past statements that she made on earlier occasions, that they always knew that their stay in space could be extended, and were prepared for contingencies like this. “Butch and I knew this was a test flight,” she said. “We knew that we would probably find some things (wrong with Starliner) and we found some stuff, and so that was not a surprise."
ALSO READ ON ABP LIVE | Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore To Return To Earth Early? NASA Shares New Plan
Sunita Williams And Butch Wilmore To Return In March
NASA had in August last year asked SpaceX to bring back Williams and Wilmore as part of its Crew-9 mission. However, a delay was announced in December reportedly because mission teams needed more time to have a new SpaceX vehicle ready.
But earlier this week, NASA announced a decision to switch the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule designated for the Crew-10 mission launch, which meant the astronauts would be able to return a few weeks earlier than planned.
NASA and SpaceX are accelerating the target launch and return dates for the upcoming crew rotation missions to and from @Space_Station.#Crew10 launch now is targeted for March 12, pending mission readiness and completion of flight readiness: https://t.co/MhBNJCL80F pic.twitter.com/ZZs9NltVI5
— NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) February 11, 2025
The Crew Dragon Endurance is set to transport a new crew to the ISS to relieve Williams, Wilmore, and their teammates — NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov — potentially as early as March 12, pending final mission preparations.
NASA, however, did not say the scheduling adjustment was influenced by any directive from Trump. Typically, US presidents do not intervene in space station operations, as crew rotations are carefully coordinated by NASA and Roscosmos, which jointly oversee ISS operations.
The Crew-10 mission will carry NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.
Williams and Willmore told CNN that the Crew-10 mission is set to launch from Earth on March 12, heading to ISS for a six-month mission. Once it docks at the ISS, the two will oversee a transition of command, with a new commander taking charge.
After a week-long handover period, Williams and Willmore will prepare for their return journey.
"The plan is that Crew-10 will launch on March 12, do a turnover for a week and we will return on March 19," Willmore said during the interview.
Williams and Wilmore initially arrived at the ISS in June aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. However, their return was delayed as NASA and Boeing investigated propulsion malfunctions and gas leaks that occurred during their journey. Ultimately, officials determined that Starliner was not a safe option for their return, leading the astronauts to integrate into the station’s regular crew rotation.
After Trump assumed office in January, Musk said Trump had asked his SpaceX to step in to "bring home" the two astronauts left “stranded” by the Biden administration.
“The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so,” Musk’s post read, adding: “Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”
The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 28, 2025
Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.
Trump also posted on his Truth Social platform that Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore were “virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration".
Top Headlines
