Posts by President Trump and Elon Musk roiled the space community, raising the prospect of an earlier-than-planned return for the Starliner crew.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Elon Musk put out a message on X saying that President Donald Trump had asked him to return the two Boeing Starliner astronauts who have been on the space station since June as soon as possible.

The founder of SpaceX said President Trump had asked his company to return two astronauts aboard the space station to Earth “as soon as possible.” NASA said it would do that “as soon as practical.”

SpaceX and Vast Space are looking for research ideas to fly aboard Vast's new Haven-1 space station launching later this year.

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Elon Musk's company SpaceX will "soon" begin a mission to repatriate two American astronauts who have been stranded for months on the International Space Station.

So the return of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore has never been a political story—until this week. And it's a good thing that the two will be in space tomorrow because, as attested to in the tagline for the movie Alien, in space, no one can hear you scream.

Elon Musk says Donald Trump has asked SpaceX to rescue two astronauts who have been in space for more than seven months — even though NASA has said there's a plan in place.

NASA is set to collaborate with SpaceX to return astronauts from the ISS amidst plans for further cosmic exploration. Samples from asteroid Bennu suggest the presence of life's building blocks. Meanwhile,

While Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore’s situation is unusual, their return trip will be pretty routine, as they were already slated to fly home on a SpaceX capsule as part of a scheduled crew rotation.

Liftoff is scheduled for 8:34 p.m. ET tonight (Jan. 29).

The vice president leading Boeing's Starliner spacecraft unit, Mark Nappi, has left his role in the program and been replaced by the company's International Space Station program manager, John Mulholland,