US President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk have reiterated their claims that NASA astronauts were “abandoned” on the International Space Station for political reasons. However, evidence suggests that this is not the case.
In a joint interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Musk announced plans to help rescue two NASA astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been on the ISS since June. Trump had previously asked Musk to bring them back “as soon as possible” due to what he claimed was political interference by the Biden administration.
However, a public accounting of the events from NASA and an independent safety panel differs from what Musk and Trump described in the interview. According to NASA, the astronauts were not left on the station for political reasons but rather due to uncertainty about the performance of thrusters on the spacecraft’s approach to the station.
NASA officials stated that their decision to leave the astronauts on the station for six months was not influenced by the White House and that politics had “absolutely nothing” to do with it. The agency also reported that an additional thruster malfunctioned during the spacecraft’s return, but this did not affect the decision to bring back Starliner uncrewed.
The astronauts themselves have also denied feeling abandoned on the ISS, saying they are prepared and committed to their mission. SpaceX has rescheduled the launch of its next Crew Dragon mission, Crew-10, to March 12, with the two astronauts expected to return to Earth at the end of the mission.
Source: https://spacenews.com/musk-and-trump-repeat-inaccurate-claims-about-starliner-astronauts